Discuss five kinds of lexical relations, using Eng

参考答案: Synonymy
Synonymy is used to mean sameness or close similarity of meaning. Synonyms are two or more forms with very closely related meanings, which are often, but not always, intersubstitutable in sentences. Examples of synonyms are the pairs broad-wide, hide-conceal, almost-nearly, cab-taxi, liberty-freedom, and answer-reply.
Some semanticians maintain, however, that there are no real synonyms, because two or more words named synonyms are expected without exception to differ from one another in one of the following aspects: in shades of meaning(e.g., finish, complete, close, conclude, terminate, finalize, end, etc.), in stylistic meaning, in emotive meaning(or affective meaning), in range of use(or collocative meaning), in British and American English usages[e.g., autumn(BrE), fall(AmE)].
B)Antonymy
Antonymy is the name for oppositeness relation. There are three main sub-types: gradable antonymy, complementary antonymy, and converse antonymy.
Gradable antonymy is the commonest type of antonymy, in which the members of a pair differ in terms of degree. The denial of one is not necessarily the assertion of the other. For example, good- bad, big-small and hot-cold are of this type.
Complementary antonymy refers to the sense relation in which the members of a pair in this type are complementary to each other. For example, single-married, dead-alive and male-female are of this type.
Converse antonymy is a special type of antonymy in that the members of a pair do not constitute a positive-negative opposition. They show the reversal of a relationship between two entities. For example, buy-sell and parent-child are of this type.
C)Hyponymy
Hyponymy involves us in the notion of meaning inclusion. It is a matter of class membership. That is to say, when X is kind of Y, the lower term X is the "hyponym", and the upper term Y is the "superordinate". Two or more hyponyms sharing the same superordinate are called "co-hyponyms". For example, "flower" is the superordinate of "tulip", "violet" and "rose", which are the co-hyponyms of "nower".
D)Polysemy
Polysemy refers to the semantic phenomenon that a word may have more than one meaning. For example, "negative" means(A)a statement saying or meaning "no", (B)a refusal or denial, (C)one of the following words and expressions: no, not, nothing, never, not at all, etc., (D)a negative photograph or film.
E)Homonymy
The term homonymy is used when one form(written and spoken)has two or more unrelated meanings. The following types are of homonymy.
(A)Homographs—words which are identical in spelling, but different in meaning and pronunciation: tear
(B)Homophones—words which are identical in pronunciation, but different in spelling and meaning: see/sea.
(C)Complete homonyms—words which are identical in spelling and pronunciation, but different in meaning: bear(v.to give birth to a baby/to stand)/bear(n.a kind of animal).
答案解析: 本题考查词汇的涵义关系。