a. A Semantics theory of natural language should be finite. People are
capable of storing only a finite amount of information but they learn the semantics of natural language.
b. A Semantics theory of natural language should reflect the facts
except for idioms expressions are compositional. This means that meaning of syntactically complex expression is determined by the
meaning of its constituents and their grammatical relations.
2.4 Meaning Relations in English
Meaning relations is also called sense or semantics relations. It is the realtionships of meaning or sense that may be set up between two individual and
groups of lexical items. Semantic or meaning relations have six terms that will be discussed in this thesis. They are synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, homonymy,
hyponymy, and meronymy.
2.4.1 Synonymy
The term synonymy is derived from Greek word synonymy syn which means with together and onyma means name. So, synonymy means name
together. Two words or more together name the same object, action, event or quality.
Synonymy are words from the same language and grammatical category, which have similar or almost similar meaning but different spelling, sound,
connotation, or application. It is identical in sense to another word or has the same
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or nearly the same general sense as another word but it is perhaps use in different context. Examples of synonyms are the pairs:
1. kingly = royal
2. world = universe
3. buy = purchase
4. brotherly = fraternal
5. almost = nearly
Nevertheless, it has been aid as well to remember that no two words ever have exactly the same meaning no perfect synonym. Two words might be
synoymous in one sentence but different in another. It seems to be very little if any differences between the expressions. Both of the following expressions have
difference to be considered. For examples: a.
Marry is sitting in the sofa b.
Marry is sitting in the couch
Some individuals may always use sofa and couch, but if they know the
two words, they will understand the sentences with either word and interpret them to mean the same thing. The degree of semantic similarity between words depends
on great extent on the number of semantic properties they share. Sofa and couch
refer to the same type of object and share most, if not all, their semantic properties.
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2.4.2 Antonymy
Antonymy are words or expressions which are opposite in meaning. Or two forms with opposite meaning. They can share an aspect of meaning but
opposite or incompatible in some other aspect of meaning. There are three kinds of antonyms, they are:
1. Complementary Pairs
It means the items complementary to each other. The items belong to the set of incompatible terms. We can also say that the negative of one word is
synonymous with the other. For example: male X female and clean X dirty are complementary pairs. If not male = female and if not female = male and also if
not clean = dirty, if not dirty = clean.
Complementary pairs are predicates which come in pairs and between them exhaust all the relevant possibilities. If the one predicates is applicable, then
the other can not be and vice versa. For instance, the words married and single.
These two words cannot be used to refer the same individual at the same time.
There is only one possibility of the fact, such as in the sentence Peter is married or Peter is single. If married is application, then single is not, and vise versa. It
means, to say Peter is married is to say that He is not single. So, to say something is Not the one is to say that is the other.
2. Gradable Pairs
It means the pairs of words have gradation of width, age, size, etc. All are
indicated by the adjectives. For examples: old X new and hard X soft are gradable pairs. If we say not old, it is not necessarily equal with new because when
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someone is not old, it doesn’t mean he is new. Gradable pairs also means the
negative of one word is not synonymous with the other. Gradable pairs can be graded into comparative and superlative degrees by
adding the word more or most and inflection -er or –es to which are being compared. For example, the word big is the opposite of word small. The word big
can be graded into comparative degree bigger or superlative degree biggest, and the word small can be garded into comparative degree smaller or superlative
degree smallest. It is also true of gradable pairs that more of one is less of another. For example: longer is less short, , wider is less narrow, and more bigness is less
smaller. There are two characteristics of gradable pairs, they are marked term and
unmarked term. Marked term means that the term is not so used by the speaker.
In contrary, unmarked term means that the term of the pairs is commonly used by
people in speaking of their language. For example, the expression How high is it? or How wide is it? are commonly used than How low is it? or How narrow is it?.
3. Relational Opposite
Relational opposites is a quite different kind of ‘opposite’ found with pairs of words which exhibit the reversal of relationship between items Palmer,
1976:81.
It means we can find the relationship between the opposite pairs of words or two-way contrast where one number presupposes the other, symetry,
transitivity, and reflexivity are the characteristics of relation.
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Relational opposite comes from verbs: buysell, lendborrow, rentlet, ownbelong to, and
giverecieve. There are also nouns: husbandwife, fiancefiancee, parentchild, debtorcreditor, and
teacherpupi; in a number of terms referring to spatial position: abovebelow, infront ofbehind, north ofsouth
of; and in grammar too, active and passive such as: if Tom hits Harry, Harry is hit by Tom.
It is clear that if A gives Y to B, then B receives Y from A ; if A is B’s
teacher, then B is A’s pupil. Pairs of words ending in –er and –ee are usually relational opposite. For instance, if Ann is Bob’s emlpoyer, then Bob is Ann’s
employee. Other forms to form antonyms are by adding the prefix un-, prefix non-, prefix in- before the word. For examples:
equal X unequal important X unimportant
fiction X nonfiction stop X nonstop
direct X indirect capable X incapable
2.4.3 Polysemy The term Polysemy is derived from Greek word poly means many and
sema means sign or mark. So, the sameness of meaning is not very easy to deal
with but there seems nothing inherently difficult about the difference of meaning. Not only do different words have different meanings; it is also the case that the
same word may have a set of different meanings. This is polysemy; such a word is
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polysemic. Thus the dictionary will define the word flight in at least the following ways: passing through the air, power of flying, air journey, and unit of the Air
Force. Yet there are problems even with this apparently simple concept. And other example the noun head, for instance, seems to have related meaning when
speak of the head of a person, the head of a company, head of a table of bad, and head of lettuce or cabbage. If we take the anatomical reference as the basic
one, either reflecting the general shape of the human head or, more abstractly, the relation of the head to the rest of the body.
First, we cannot clearly distinguish whether two meanings ate the same or different and therefore, determine exactly how many meanings a word has. For a
meaning is not easily delimited and so distinguished from other meanings.
Consider the verb eat. The dictionary distinguishes the ‘literal’ sense of taking
food and derived meanings of ‘use up’ and ‘corrode’ and we should, perhaps treat these as three different meanings. But we can also distinguish between eating
meat and eating soup, the former with a knife and fork and the letter with a spoon. Morever, we talk about dringking soup as well as eating it.
Secondly, we may ask whether we can make any general remarks about differences of meaning. Are regular types of difference found in the meaning of
various words? One of the most familiar kinds of relationship between meanings. Thirdly, there is the problem that if one form has several meanings, it is
not always clear whether we shall say that this is an examples of polysemy that there is one word with several meanings or of Homonymy that there are several
words with the same shape.
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According to Palmer 1976:68 ” The problem, however, is to decide when we have polysemy and when we have homonymy. Given that we have a written
form with two meanings, do are we say that it is one word with different meaning polysemy or two different words with the same shapes of homonymy”.
2.4.4 Homonymy
