2. Sense Relations
Sense refers to meaning in language (intralanguage) with no relation to the world, that is, it is conceptualized meaning about the world, it is abstract.
The formula is Sense = Sense relations + Sense properties (Wang Yin, 2001).
2.1 Presentation of Sense 2.1.1 Sense in Lexicon
Sense is revealed in lexicon is:
Hyponymy, Synonymy, Antonymy, Ambiguity, Polysemy, Homonymy
2.1.2 Sense in Sentence
The study of sense in sentence is the study of the features of analytic sentence and synthetic sentence. The criterion of dividing the two kinds of sentences is dependence or independence on the context of situation. If dependent, the sentence is synthetic, or it is analytic (Wang Yin, 2001).
Sense in sentence concretely refers to:
Anomaly, Entailment, Paraphrase, Contradiction, Ambiguity
2.1.3 Sense in Text
Sense and reference can work well in studying text. The sentences that can be composed of texts are in four types: Declaration, Interrogation, Imperation, Exclamation; the types of composition can be traditionally divided into Description, Narration, Exposition, Argumentation. Actually, the types of sentences and texts are reflections of senses while what the texts actually show is reference. The forms of the texts are independent from context of situation, they are senses; the contents of the texts are the references to what happens around us.
2.2 Sense Relations
2.2.1 Kinds of Sense Relations
According to the relations and restrictions in the semantic features that language elements have, there are two kinds of relations: substitutional and combinatorial (Lyons, 1995) or paradigmatic and syntagmatic.
2.2.2 Substitutional (Paradigmatic) Sense Relations
Substitutional sense relation refers to those words that exist in the same category such as noun, verb, adjective and adverb. Because they are in the same category, they share semantic features such as similarities, differences, relations, increase in meaning, relation in sound and form. In semantics, synonymy, antonymy, polysemy, homonymy, hyponymy are the issues.
2.2.2.1 Synonymy
1 / 12
Synonymy is used to mean “sameness” of meaning. The words that share the same
or similar meanings are called synonyms. Synonyms are different phonological words (different words) which have the same or very similar meanings (J. I. Saeed, 1997). The following are the criteria of synonyms:
1) All their meanings are identical;
2) They are synonymous in all contexts;
3) They are semantically equivalent (i.e., their meaning or meanings are
identical) on all dimensions of meaning, descriptive and non-descriptive. (J. Lyons, 1995)
According to the three criteria, synonyms are divided into near synonyms (words that are more or less similar, but not identical, in meaning), partial
synonyms (words that are identical in meaning, but not to satisfy all the three
criteria) and absolute synonyms (words that are identical meeting all the criteria). “Mist” and “fog”, “mellow” and “mature”, “lure” and “coax” in English, “快捷” and “迅速”, “悬崖” and “峭壁” in Chinese are near synonyms. English words like “tree” and “willow”, “ox” and “cow” and Chinese words such as “百货商店” and “超市” are partial synonyms, because they share parts of semantic features [+ plant of wood with braches and leaves and with a canopy / + tamed animal / +place for selling goods], but they are different in other semantic features [+/- polysemous / +/- male / +/- free selection]. Absolute synonyms are extremely rare (J. Lyons, 1995), though “dog” and “hound”, “狗” and “犬” are possibly absolute synonyms, but there are some slight differences between them.
2.2.2.2 Antonymy
The term antonymy is used for “oppositeness” or “contrast” of meaning; words that are opposite or contrary are antonyms.
In language acquisition, researchers have found that semantic feature analysis is particularly helpful in understanding the acquisition of synonyms and antonyms. The research shows that one member of a pair of antonyms is more basic and easier to learn. The easier term in the pair is said to be unmarked (positive) and the more difficult one to be marked (negative). Unmarked terms “wise”, “intelligent”, “useful”, “interesting”, etc. ) are generally easier to learn than marked terms “foolish”, “stupid”, “useless”, “boring”, etc. So “happy” is usually acquired before “unhappy”; “high” is usually acquired before “low”.
A. Contradictory Antonyms ( Complete Contrast or Gradable Antonyms) 1). Qualitative adjectives
English abounds in pairs of words such as “wide” and “narrow”, “old” and “young”, “big” and “small”, etc., words like “快” and “慢”, “好” and “坏”, and “大” and “小”, “多” and “少” in Chinese have in common the fact that they may be seen in terms of degrees of the quality involved.
2 / 12
2). Adverbs denoting time, position, direction and state
Adverbs are words that show the time, position, direction and state of actions that occur. Adverbs that are antonymous are from three resources: free morphemes (independent words), derivation (affixation) and compounding. “early” and “late”, “up” and “down”, “square” and “round” in English, “过去” and “现在”, “快” and “慢” in Chinese are free morphological antonymous words. “Quickly” and “slowly”, “happily” and “sadly”, “generally” and “specifically”, “comfortably” and “uncomfortably” are derivational antonyms. “Upstairs” and “downstairs”, “forward(s)” and “backward(s)”, “迅速” and “缓慢”, “轻巧” and “笨拙” are compound antonymous adverbs. For Chinese, “地”, as a bound morpheme, is added to an adjective, then the adjective becomes an adverb.
3). Verbs denoting feelings, emotion, action
Verbs that show the actions are naturally exist in language, they are also from three ways like those in 3).
“to love” and “to hate”, “to support” and “to oppose”, “to give” and “to take” and “to win” and “to lose”, “爱” and “恨”, “来” and “去”, “上” and “下” are free morphological verb antonyms; while “agree” and “disagree”, “understand” and “misunderstand”, “前进” and “退却”, “上山” and “下乡”, “记住” and “忘记” are derivational antonyms; “志同道合”and “分道扬镳” are compounding antonyms. B. Relative Antonyms (Relative Contrast)
Some scholars suggested that there are complementary and relational antonyms. Complementary antonyms are those words whose meanings are complementary to each other in a meaning range in which one is at one end and the other is at another, it is also named as binary pairs. For example: “male” and “female”, “married” and “single”, “alive” and “dead”, “男” and “女”, “学生” and “教师” are complementary antonyms. Normally, we cannot say, “someone is a half man.” or “他是半个男人”. But there is an odd language phenomenon that the words are used in violation of nature and features of language. This is a metaphorical usage. So we say the above. Complementary antonyms are different from contradictory antonyms. The following box shows the differences between them. type criterion example contradictory There may be middle best, … ,good, bad, … , words worst complementary There are no middle words dead, alive; employer, employee Relational antonyms refer to the words whose meanings are relational, that is, if one is mentioned, the other must appear to accompany the former. “Father” and “mother”, “brother” and “sister”, “employer” and “employee”, “buy” and “sell”, “lend” and “borrow”, “丈夫” and “妻子”, “父母” and “子女”, “债权人” and “债务人”, “索取” and “奉献” are relational antonyms. To verbs in this category, there exists a phenomenon that the tow words in relational condition can be used in the conversed structure, “John bought a bike from Tom” can be conversed as “Tom sold a bike to John”; “他有两辆汽车” can be conversed as “这两辆汽车属于他”.
Terms involved in relational opposition may be transitive, e.g. both “above” and
3 / 12
SEMANTIC-CONSTITUENTS-AND-SENSE-RELATION
