Linguistic science belongs to a semiotic system. Any semiotic system has paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations. Paradigmatic relations bind the sciences in the structure of the language.
Paradigm is a group of elements, having a common component but different in a certain part. Paradigmatic relations include synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy and incompatibility.
Syntagmatic relations show how the linguistic system functions and in particular how lexical meanings are united in groups. Syntagmatic relations exist only into larger units. For the whole meaning of groups which is composed of the meanings of single words and sometimes has little references to the individual meanings or idioms. Syntagmatic relations deal with semantic redundancy; semantic and grammatical agreement; valency etc.
Hyponymy is the semantic relationship of inclusion. The hyponymic relationship may be viewed as the hierarchical relationship between the meaning of the general and individual terms.
The general term is sometimes called the classifier or hypernym. It serves to describe the lexico-semantic group, individual terms or hyponyms contain the meaning of the general term in addition to their individual meanings which distinguish them from each other. e.g.: to move hypernym = walk, run, crawl hyponyms. The principle is widely spread in botany, geology etc. hyponymic relations may be viewed as objectively reflecting the structure of vocabulary and is considered one of the most important principles for the description of meaning.
2 most important features: hyponymy is transitive; hyponymy is asymmetrical.
A hyponym inherits all the features of the more generic concepts and adds at least 1 feature that distinguishes it from its hypernym and from any other hyponym of that group.
The hyponym transfers some its characteristics to the hyponyms — transitivity.
The hyponymic relation is asymmetric because 1 hypernym can have many hyponyms and not visa versa. Also in speech a hypernym may be used instead of its hyponym and never visa versa. e.g.: He owed a canary but the bird didnt sing. canary may be placed at the beginning of the sentence. The bird — an anaphoric noun; a canary — its antecedent. There exist different hierarchical relations within different parts of speech. Within nouns there is meronymy. These are the part and whole relations.
A meronym is a part and a holonym is the whole. e.g.: finger is a meronym to a hand; hand is a holonym to a finger. Within verbs the relations are of more complicated characters. The different relations can be cast in terms of lexical entailment or strict implication. e.g. snore lexically entails — sleep.
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Another approach to the classification of vocabulary items into lexico-semantic groups is the study of hyponymic relations between words. By hyponymy is meant a semantic relationship of inclusion. Thus, e.g., vehicle includes car, bus, taxi and so on; oak implies tree; horse entails animal; table entails furniture. Thus the hyponymic relationship may be viewed as the hierarchical relationship between the meaning of the general and the individual terms.
The general term (vehicle, tree, animal, etc.) is sometimes referred to as the classifier and serves to describe the lexico-semantic groups, e.g. Lexico-semantic groups (LSG) of vehicles, movement, emotions, etc.
The individual terms can be said to contain (or entail) the meaning of the general term in addition to their individual meanings which distinguish them from each other (cf. the classifier move and the members of the group walk, run, saunter, etc.).
It is of importance to note that in such hierarchical structures certain words may be both classifiers and members of the groups. This may be illustrated by the hyponymic structure represented below.
Another way to describe hyponymy is in terms of genus and differentia.
The more specific term is called the hyponym of the more general, and the more general is called the hyperonym or the classifier.
It is noteworthy that the principle of such hierarchical classification is widely used by scientists in various fields of research: botany, geology, etc. Hyponymic classification may be viewed as objectively reflecting the structure of vocabulary and is considered by many linguists as one of the most important principles for the description of meaning.
A general problem with this principle of classification (just as with lexico-semantic group criterion) is that there often exist overlapping classifications. For example, persons may be divided into adults (man, woman, husband, etc.) and children (boy, girl, lad, etc.) but also into national groups (American, Russian, Chinese, etc.), professional groups (teacher, butcher, baker, etc.), social and economic groups, and so on.
Another problem of great importance for linguists is the dependence of the hierarchical structures of lexical units not only on the structure of the corresponding group of referents in real world but also on the structure of vocabulary in this or that language.
This can be easily observed when we compare analogous groups in different languages. Thus, e.g., in English we may speak of the lexico-semantic group of meals which includes: breakfast, lunch, dinner, supper, snack, etc. The word meal is the classifier whereas in Russian we have no word for meals in general and consequently no classifier though we have several words for different kinds of meals.
