Chapter 4 Sense relations

I. Answer these questions:

1. What do semasiology and onomasiology generally study ?

2. What is the distinction between semasiology and onomasiology ?
3. What is the focus of semasiological research ?
4. What semantic relations are associated with onomasiology ?
5. What does semasiological variation refer to ?
6. What does onomasiological variation imply ?
7. How does onomasiology differ from semasiology ?
8. What are the criteria used in distinguishing polysemy from homonymy?
9. What are the conditions required for absolute synonymy?
10. Why is knowledge of the expressive component of the meaning of a
lexeme important?
11. What do lexical opposites in a language reflect?
12. Which types of oppositeness of meaning does John Lyons (1987/1997) distinguish?
13. How do verbal complimentaries differ from adjectival complementaries, according to David
Allan Cruse (1986)?
14. What logical criterion lies at the basis of converseness?
15. How does entailment operate in the case of hyponymy?
16. Is autohyponymy an instance of polysemy?
17. What semantic relation does hyponymy resemble? In what sense?
18. How does meronymy differ from hyponymy?

II. Explain the mechanism of sense extension in these words:

a) climb d) writing
b) mouth e) tongue
c) beaver f) reader

III. Explain the mechanism of sense extension in these examples:

a) this land belongs to the Crown.

b) We need some new faces around here.
c) He elbowed me out of the queue.

IV. Explain the type of sense extension in these polysemantic words:

a) paper e) snarl
b) board f) purr
c) dry g) grunt
d) sharp
V. Give the homonyms of these words and then use them in sentences

of your own:

a) through d) steal
b) storeys e) ball
c) sew f) stare

VI. Consider the following English words and decide whether they are thought of in terms of
homonymy or polysemy and why. Try translating them into any other language you know; are there
several possible translation equivalents or will one word do for the different meanings the English word
has?

cap face row club

way bed match plot

VII. How many meanings or senses do you know for the following English words? Do some senses
seem more basic or central than others? If so, which ones and why?

top page button ring

VIII. Complete the following examples of polysemy in English. Note the degree to which they
correspond with your own language

leg of a person / chair

mouth of a person /
branch of a tree /
top ...
tail ...

IX. Consider the sentences below and comment on the polysemy of HEAD by explaining which
meaning extensions are metaphors and which are metonymies:

a) My head is full of strange thoughts.

b) That joke went over his head.
c) The queen is still the head of state.
d) I prefer my beer without a head of foam.
e) We paid ten pounds a head for the meal.

X. Comment on the metaphorical extension of these terms:

warm –
1. characterized by or having a moderate degree of heat; moderately hot
2. maintaining or imparting heat
a warm coat
3. having or showing ready affection, kindliness, etc
a warm personality
4. lively, vigorous, or passionate
a warm debate
5. cordial or enthusiastic; ardent
warm support
6. quickly or easily aroused
a warm temper
7. (of colours) predominantly red or yellow in tone
8. (of a scent, trail, etc) recently made; strong
9. near to finding a hidden object or discovering or guessing facts, as in children's games
10.  informal
uncomfortable or disagreeable, esp because of the proximity of danger

icy-
1.If you describe something as icy or icy cold, you mean that it is extremely cold.

An icy wind blew hard across the open spaces.

His shoes and clothing were wet through and icy cold.
Synonyms: cold, freezing, bitter, biting   More Synonyms of icy

2. adjective
An icy road has ice on it.

3. adjective
If you describe a person or their behaviour as icy, you mean that they are not affectionate or
friendly, and they show their dislike or anger in a quiet, controlled way. [disapproval]
His response was icy.

Frosty
1. characterized by frost
a frosty night
2. covered by or decorated with frost
3. lacking warmth or enthusiasm
the new plan had a frosty reception
4. like frost in appearance or colour; hoary

Cold
1. having relatively little warmth; of a rather low temperature
cold weather
cold hands
2. without sufficient or proper warmth
this meal is cold
3. lacking in affection, enthusiasm, or warmth of feeling
a cold manner
4. not affected by emotion; objective
cold logic
5. dead
6. sexually unresponsive or frigid
7. lacking in freshness
a cold scent
cold news
8. chilling to the spirit; depressing
9. (of a colour) having violet, blue, or green predominating; giving no sensation of warmth
10.  metallurgy - denoting or relating to a process in which work-hardening occurs as a result of
the plastic deformation of a metal at too low a temperature for annealing to take place
11. (of a process) not involving heat, in contrast with traditional methods
cold typesetting
cold technology
12.  informal - (of a seeker in a game) far from the object of a search
13. denoting the contacting of potential customers, voters, etc, without previously approaching
them in order to establish their interest
cold mailing
14.  cold comfort
15.  cold steel
16.  from cold
17.  in cold blood
18.  leave someone cold
19.  throw cold water on
noun
20. 
the absence of heat regarded as a positive force
the cold took away our breath
21. the sensation caused by loss or lack of heat
22.  in the cold
23. an acute viral infection of the upper respiratory passages characterized by discharge of
watery mucus from the nose, sneezing, etc
24.  catch a cold
adverb
25.  informal without preparation
he played his part cold
26.  informal, mainly US and Canadian
thoroughly; absolutely
she turned him down cold

b) white– black – blue – yellow – red

c) see – hear – taste – touch

XI. The words in the HOT-COLD domain aren’t always used literally. They don’t always refer to
TEMPERATURE. Discuss the meanings of the expressions below:

a. a warm personality - A warm person is friendly and shows a lot of affection or enthusiasm in their
behaviour.

- lively, vigorous, or passionate  

b. a hot- tempered person - If you describe someone as hot-tempered, you think they get angry very
quickly and easily.

c. a red-hot idea - Red-hot is used to describe a person or thing that is very popular, especially
someone who is very good at what they do or something that is new and exciting.
- If someone or something is described as red-hot, they show a lot of passion, enthusiasm, or
excitement.

d. an icy stare - especially of psychological coldness; without human warmth or emotion

e. a scorching criticism – to criticize harshly

f. a blistering attack- very critical remarks expressing anger and disapproval

g. a luke-warm response - disapproving - not enthusiastic or interested:

h. a frosty reception - lacking warmth or enthusiasm  

XII. Consider some idioms with HAND exemplifying these metonymies:

a) The hand stands for the activity.

A.1 Brian has studied hard and put the last hand to the test. - "the last trial”

A.2 When I cried over my much work ,he gave his hand to me. - "work"

A.3 She is so brave that she takes her life in her hands traveling to Africa. - "traveling”

b) The hand stands for control.

B.1.The slaves were in his hand.

B.2.New information about the terror attack came to hand this week and the police can carry out more
wide spread investigation.

B.3.Our workers tend to grow lazy if they are given a free hand.

c) Control is holding in the hand.

d) The hand stands for the person.
D1.That gentleman is my father's right hand man. – „a loyal or believable person".

2.We have difficulty in working because we are short of hands. - person

3.The book travelled from hand to hand.- person to person

XIII. Mention the type of metonymy you can identify in these idioms:

a) a) give somebody a big hand- To applaud one extensively, often as a show of approval or
appreciation. - The hand stands for the activity.

b) from hand to hand - The hand stands for the person.

c) keep one ’s hand(s) in - To remain involved in something, often in a minor role or capacity.
d) gain the upper hand - To come to be in a position of advantage, power, and/or control (over
someone, something, or some situation).
e) keep a strict hand upon a person - The hand stands for control.
f) an old hand- One who has experience doing a particular task.- The hand stands for the person.

Exemplify the idioms above in sentences of your own.

XIV. The noun length refers to the general dimension in which the adjectives long and short describe
regions. Find such ‘abstract nouns’ for the following pairs of adjectives.

a. tall/ tallness; short/ shortness g. Fast/ fastness; slow/slowness

b. thick/thickness: thin/thinness h. Clever/cleverness: stupid/ stupidity
c. heavy/ heaviness: light/ lightness i. broad/ broadness: narrow/narrowness
d. wide/wideness: narrow/ narrowness j. hot/hotness: cold/coldness
e. old/ oldness: young/youth k. warm/ warmness: cool/coolness
f. far/farness: near/nearness

XV. Sometimes verbs that express ANIMAL SOUNDS are used as metaphors for features of HUMAN
SPEECH in English. Fill in the blanks with the appropriate sound term. Choose from this list: bark- a
latra, hiss-a sasai, grunt- a grohai, snarl-pt caine, twitter- a ciripi, squeal- a scartai, purr- a toarce, growl- a
mormai:

1. My mother is so cute when she twitters about her grandchildren.

2. ‘Stop crying’, the police officer snarled at the drug dealer.
3. The actress purred her answer to the reporters.
4. The prisoner grunt his reply to the guard.
5. The sergeant growled his orders to the new soldiers.

XVI . Comment on the reading of the italicized items in the following pair sentences:
1. a. It is man that is responsible for environmental pollution. - general
b. That man entered the room in a hurry.- specific
2. a. You must not drink anything on the day of the operation – general sense
b. John doesn’t drink – he’ll have an orange juice.- specific- not drinking alcochol

XVII. Are the following pairs of items exact synonyms which can be interchanged in all contexts? If
possible, create examples of sentences where the words cannot be interchanged:

a) hurry / hasten b) exit / way out c) confess / admit

d) consider / regard e) injure / damage f) customer/client
g) pavement / sidewalk h) spud / potato i) little/small j) peak/summit

XVIII. Look up the following pairs of synonyms in your dictionary and make a note of the origin of each
lexeme:

help – aid heaven – sky kingdom – realm

teach – instruct first – initial annoy – irritate

XIX. Consider the following pairs of synonyms. Can you think of any sentence context in which one
member of a pair may be used and the other member not? Make sentence frames to illustrate this point.

e.g. I am not at .... to tell you (the word liberty may be inserted but not its synonym freedom)

discover – find
busy – occupied
decoration – ornamentation
keep – retain
frequently – often

XX. Look up the following regional dialect words in your dictionary to discover the standard dialect
synonyms (see Collins English Dictionary):

butty, culch, diddle, heartsome, lease, mullock, pawky, snap, stob, tum

XXI. Consider the following groups of synonyms and say how the members of each group differ in their
connotation:

crowd - mob
pleased – delighted - glad
look at - stare at - gaze at
modern - up to date
boring - monotonous – tedious - dull

XXII. Give the colloquial or slang equivalent for these euphemistic synonyms: a. pass away; b.
liquidate; c. intoxicated (inebriated)
XXIII. Group these words into triplets of lexemes with overlapping meanings, i.e. sets of partial
synonyms: brim, crush, decorate, edge, enlist, genuine, fire, income, make up (vb), mash, paint, pound
(vb), real recruit (vb), rim, salary, sincere, wages.

XXIV. Comment on the collocational range of these synonyms:

edge – border – rim – brim – brink – margin – verge.

Which of these words can be used metaphorically?

XXV. Comment on and exemplify these ideographic (denotational) synonyms:

a. gaze – gape – glare – stare – glimpse – glance – peep – peer – eye.

b. chuckle – giggle – smile – simper – smirk – grin – chortle – titter – snicker.

c. surprise – astonish – astound – amaze – bewilder

d. warm – lukewarm – hot – boiling

XXVI. Comment on and exemplify in sentences of your own these ideographic synonyms:

a. fear – scare – fright – horror – terror

b. convention – agreement – contract – treaty – pact
c. irritation – anger – fury – rage

XXVII. What kind of antonymy is represented by each of the following pairs of antonyms?

a) behind - in front; b) captive - free; c) fast - slow; d) fixed - loose; e) high - low; f) in - out; g) leave -
stay; h) north of - south of; i) parent - child; j) rich - poor; k) teacher - pupil; l) thin - fat;

XXVIII. List the antonyms of the following lexemes. Mention the class of antonyms they belong to:
alive, male, narrow, open, over, receive, relinquish, sell, small, tall, weak, wife.

XXIX. What are the possible opposites of the words hard and high in these phrases? Which has the most
contextual variation:

high marks hard exam

high opinion hard chair
high building hard journey
high price hard work
high temperature hard person
high winds hard drugs

XXX. A word may have different opposites in different contexts. What are the opposites of light and
rough in these phrases:

a. light bag
b. light wind
c. light colours
d. rough sea
e. rough calculation
f. rough area
g. rough person
h. rough texture

XXXI. What are the complementaries of the following:

a.dead c.same e.imperfect

b.true d.animate

XXXII. Consider the following verbal complementaries and find out the lexical items that set the scene
for complementarity:

a) refute – admit f) stay – leave

b) defend – submit g) accept – turn down
c) obey – disobey h) yield – resist
d) live – die i) win – lose
e) remember – forget

XXXIII. Fill in the gaps in these lexical triplets involving complementarity:

a) shoot (in football) – save – ……

b) punch – ………– take
c) …… – keep on – stop
d) request – ……. – refuse
e) greet -……. – snub
f) aim – hit – ……

XXXIV. Transform the sentences below by using converse terms:

1. Tom is Mary’s brother. Mary is ...

2. David is Margaret’s nephew. Margaret is ...
Use the pattern above in further examples.

XXXV. To each of the following gradable antonyms add the rest of the scale:
e.g. BIG : huge/ very big/ BIG / quite big/ medium-sized/ quite small/ SMALL/ tiny
1. hot/ cold (water) 3. interesting/ boring (a film)
2. love/ hate 4. good/ bad (a book)

XXXVI. Decide whether the following pairs contain gradable terms or not:

a) male – female e) top – bottom

b) true – false f) clever – stupid
c) hot – cold g) married – unmarried
d) love – hate h) dead – alive

XXXVII. Decide whether the following pairs are converses or not:

a) below – above d) conceal – reveal

b) like – dislike e) greater than – lesser than
c) grandparent – grandchild f) own – belong

XXXVIII. Build up the hierarchy of terms for birds in English, including chicken, eagle, sparrow, duck,
hen, humming bird, chick, ostrich, fowl, owl, penguin, robin, falcon. Find names for each group.

XXXIX. Construct the meronymy tree for car. What is the superordinate term and what co-meronyms
can you find?

XL. Make up hyponymy- trees for the following words:

a) tomato b) hammer c) bench
What are the most general words that you have included?
What are the most specific?

XLI.Construct the hyponymy tree for bird.