In recent years, research in specialized language has begun to acknowledge the need for an
interdisciplinary approach and for a set of theoretical premises that will make conceptual
modeling more objective. In fact, the study of terminology and specialized communication is
currently experiencing a „cognitive shift?, which is granting greater importance to conceptual
organization as reflected in neurological processes. Terms are specialized knowledge units
used to designate the objects, events and processes characteristic of a specialized domain. In
the same way as language mirrors the mind, terminological structure can be regarded as a
reflection of conceptual structure.
However, the specification of conceptual structure must be grounded on a set of theoretical
assumptions regarding categorization, more specifically, whether and to what extent sensory
information is part of semantic representation and processing. In this sense, they propose a
supermodel format for semantic representations, which is modality invariant though derived
from mappings across sensory and motor input. In Terminology, the correlate of this
supermodel representation is a category schema or template as posited by various authors.
This top-level schema constrains perceptual input though, at the same time, it is also derived
from sensorimotor mappings. This type of schema facilitates the retrieval of all the
information stored, and is the frame for any semantic network.
Not surprisingly, the configuration of specialized concepts in networks with both hierarchical
and non-hierarchical or associative relations has proven to be one of the most important
aspects of terminology work. Nevertheless, this task is far from simple because, in certain
cases, the semantics of the relations are too vague, as can be observed in many thesaurus,
conceptual maps, and semantic networks. That is the reason why a wide range of methods for
structuring knowledge have been considered in Terminology. These include extending nonhierarchical
relations, specifying the properties of the relations, and integrating innovative
theories from linguistics and artificial intelligence. In order to guarantee high-quality
terminological work, it is thus necessary to establish a methodology based on logical
properties that will facilitate the accurate organization of conceptual relations.
In this report we will discuss about hyponymy. In linguistics and lexicography, hyponym is a
term used to designate a particular member of a broader class. Hyponymy will help teachers
to change the traditional mechanical way of vocabulary teaching for college English learners.
Also, this kind of teaching pattern can not only arouse the students? interest and motivation
for learning English, but can also reduce the pressure of learning, which is brought by the
traditional teaching pattern. It can help students develop their thinking mode of language
learning and arouse students? associative memory through using hyponymy method, thus
effectively improving the learning efficiency and quality.
Hyponymy involves specific instantiations of a more general concept such as holds between
horse and animal or vermilion and red or buy and get. In each case, one word provides a more
specific type of concept than is displayed by the other. The more specific word is called a
hyponym and the more general word is the superordinate which are also referred to as
hyperonyms or hypernyms, although the latter is dispreferred as in non-rhotic dialects of
English it is homophonic with hyponym. Where the words being classified according to this
relation are nouns, one can test for hyponymy by replacing X and Y in the frame „X is a kind
of Y? and seeing if the result makes sense. So we have „(A) horse is a kind of animal? but not
„(An) animal is a kind of horse? and so on.
A very precise definition of the relation is not entirely straightforward. One obvious approach
is to have recourse to class inclusion, so that the set of things denoted by a hyponym is a
subset of the set of things denoted by the superordinate. So the class of buying events is a
subset of the class of getting events. This works fine for words that describe concrete entities,
but becomes metaphysically more challenging when abstract words like thought emotion,
belief etc. are considered. More importantly there are words that may be said to have sense
but no denotation such as phoenix, hobbit, and light sabre and so on. As such expressions do
not pick out anything in the real word they can be said to denote only the enable us to tell
them apart. A better definition of hyponymy therefore is to forego the obvious and intuitive
reliance on class membership and define the relation in terms of sense inclusion rather than
class inclusion: the sense of the superordinate being included in the sense of the hyponym.
So a daffodil has the sense of flower included in it and more besides. If we replace „sense?, as
something we are trying to define, with the (perhaps) more neutral term „property?, then we
have:
(1) Hyponymy: X is a hyponym of Y if it is the case that if anything is such that it has the
property expressed by X then it also has the property expressed by Y
Notice that this characterization in terms of a universally quantified implication statement
does not require there to be actually be anything that has a particular property, merely that if
such a thing existed it would have that property. Furthermore, in general if X and Y are
hyponyms of Z (co-hyponyms, where two words can be defined as co-hyponyms just in case
they share the same superordinate term and one is not a hyponym of the other, then they are
generally incompatible (unless they are synonymous). For example, horse, cat, bird, sheep,
etc. are all co-hyponyms of mammal and all mutually incompatible with each other: *That
sheep is a horse. Hyponymy is a transitive relation so that if X is a hyponym of Y and Y is a
hyponym of Z then X is a hyponym of Z: foal is a hyponym of horse; horse is a hyponym of
animal, so foal is a hyponym of animal. This sort of property indicates how hyponymy
imposes partial hierarchical structure on a vocabulary. Such hierarchies may define
taxonomy of (say) natural kinds as in Figure 1. Complete hierarchies are not common,
however. Often in trying to define semantic fields of this sort, the researcher discovers that
there may be gaps in the system where some expected superordinate term is missing. For
example, in the lexical field defined by move we have hyponyms like swim, fly, roll and then
a whole group of verbs involving movement using legs such as run, walk, hop, jump, skip,
crawl, etc. There is, however, no word in English to express the concept that classifies the
latter group together. Such gaps abound in any attempt to construct a fully hierarchical
lexicon based on hyponymy. Some of these gaps may be explicable through socio-cultural
norms (for example, gaps in kinship terms in all languages), but many are simply random:
languages do not require all hierarchical terms to be lexicalized.
Hyponymy strictly speaking is definable only between words of the same (syntactic)
category, but some groups of apparent co-hyponyms seem to be related to a word of some
other category. This seems particularly true of predicate-denoting expressions like adjectives
which often seem to relate to (abstract) nouns as superordinates rather than some other
adjective. For example, round, square, tetrahedral, etc. all seem to be „quasi-hyponyms? of the
noun shape and hot, warm, cool, cold relate to temperature. Finally, the hierarchies induced
by hyponymy may be cross-cutting. So the animal field also relates to fields involving
maturity (adult, young) or sex (male, female) and perhaps other domains. This entails that certain words may be hyponyms of more than one superordinate, depending on different
dimensions of relatedness. As we shall see below, such multiple dependencies have given rise
to a number of theoretical approaches to word meaning that try to account directly for sense
relations in terms of primitive sense components or inheritance of properties in some
hierarchical arrangement of conceptual or other properties.
HYPONYMY RELATION:
Hyponymy represents a semantic relationship between a generic and specific term. Hyponyms
and hypernyms can be represented in a tree structure using the transitivity. In the tree
structure, while lower levels represent more specific terms, higher levels represent more
general terms. In the hierarchical structure, a hyponym can be a hypernym and a hypernym
can be a hyponym at the same time. Given two propositions “apple is a fruit” and “fruit is a
food”, while fruit is hypernym of apple, also fruit is hyponym of food. In the hierarchical
structure, same level sub-nodes of given a node are called co-hyponyms. For example, cat,
dog, bird are hyponyms for “animal” hypernym, are also co-hyponyms of each other.
HYPONYMIC KNOWEDGE PATTERNS ANALYSIS:
Figure 2 shows the distribution of the 3,133 concepts extracted for hyponymic KP analysis.
As can be observed, 21 semantic categories were found. The results of the study showed that
the semantic categories of the main concept types were lifeform, chemical element and
substance, whose percentages were significantly higher than those of the other categories
CORELATIONS BETWEEN HYPONYMIC KPs AND SEMANTIC CATEGORIES:
Exemplification KPs Figure 3, by far the most frequent pattern, comprised almost half of the
sample analyzed. Because of the quantity of information in these patterns, they were typical
of the most common semantic categories, namely: chemical element, life form, and substance.
The second most significant group of categories included location, phenomenon, landform,
and construction. The other semantic categories were found in significantly fewer
concordances. IMPORTANCE OF HYPONYMY:
The primary thing in learning a language is the acquisition of vocabulary. Therefore, success
in learning English requires vocabulary acquisition. A large vocabulary cannot guarantee the
learner’s competence in learning English, but inadequacy of vocabulary will obstruct their
chances to make success in learning English. Rivers in Nunan (1991: 117) argues that the
acquisition of an adequate vocabulary is essential for successful second language use because
without an extensive vocabulary, we will be unable to use the structures and functions we
may have learned for comprehensible communication.
The importance of hyponymy concludes these following points:
1- Hyponymy can be an alternative solution for teacher to teach the students since it can
help them in learning new vocabulary.
2- In using the Hyponymy, the teacher is recommended to use the vocabularies learned by
the students in the previous classes or the vocabularies used in their daily life, so that the
students can associate the new vocabulary easily.
3- In applying hyponymy in teaching vocabulary, the teacher should control the students?
activity. Helps may be needed since not all students have the same understanding about
hyponymy. The teacher should explain more clearly about the theory of hyponymy
(super-ordinate, sub-ordinate, and cohyponym).
4- Teachers should explain the new vocabularies after each activity of hyponymy
5- Students have to take notes to strengthen their vocabularies.
We know that there are many ways and principles for us to teach new items of vocabulary.
But, Schmitt (2008: 1) argued that “There is no “right” or “best” way to teach vocabulary.
The best practice in any situation will depend on the type of student, the words are targeted,
the school system and curriculum, and many others factor.” So, we should selective on
choosing the best technique to present new vocabulary that suitable with condition of our
students and the curriculum.
PROCEDURE OF TEACHING VOCABOULARY USING HYPONYMY:
Woodward in Shelley (2010: 131) gave an example of class activity of teaching vocabulary
using hyponymy.
1- The teacher provides the learners with a list of categories like food, household objects,
numbers, jobs, etc.
2- Each learner chooses or is given one category.
3- The learner then has to write as many words as possible under the category heading on a
piece of paper. So, food should contain items like bread, meat, etc.
4- The learners should write known words, not look up unknown words.
5- After set time, a learner passes their paper to the next learner who then tries to add words
not already listed.
6- Then the paper is passed on until each learner regains their original sheet of paper.
7- The learner has to check the spelling with a dictionary and then these sheets become a
class dictionary that is added to as new words are met.
CONCLUSION:
Hyponymy is effective in teaching vocabulary. Also hyponymy is a complex semantic
relation that can be studied by analyzing concept hierarchies. The results obtained showed
that the semantic category of concepts constrained their occurrence in different hyponymy
subtypes. By analyzing and classifying hyponymic knowledge patterns and hyponymy
subtypes, this report highlights the importance of hyponymy in different sectors.
In this report we have defined hyponymy, also we have discussed about hyponymy relation.
We have also studied how hyponymy’s Correlations between hyponymic KPs and semantic
categories. This preliminary study has shown how to refine genericspecific relations and
establish subtypes of hyponymy through the analysis of the concepts in a network and their
definitions. In this way, several subtypes of hyponymy have been distinguished for entities
(e.g. formation-based hyponymy), for processes (e.g. agent-based hyponymy) and for both
types (e.g. attribute-based hyponymy).
