Hyponymy

From the above diagram, we can see the word food is a general term, linguistically called a superordinate term, i.e., it includes all the other terms listed underneath it. Meat, vegetable, and fruit are specific terms and they are all hyponyms / subordinate terms of food. The relationship between specific words and general words are called hyponymy.

 

WALK： limp (缓慢费力地行进) ， amble (从容轻松地行走) ， stroll (溜达) ， stride (大踏步地走) ，strut (大摇大摆地走) ，hike (远距离地走) ，march (to walk with regular steps like a soldier)

Function: The hyponyms (or specific words) can make our speech and writing more vivid and expressive, while using too much general terms can result in vagueness and triteness.

It should be pointed out that there are other more lax types of hyponymy---pseudo-hyponymy which are also important in language.

The sense relation of hyponymy is very helpful in both receptive and productive processing of language. In reading comprehension, cohesion by hyponymy is an important key.

 

6.6 Semantic Field

Semantic field is concerned with the vocabulary of a language as a system of interrelated lexical networks.

Trier saw vocabulary as ‘an integrated system of lexemes interrelated in sense.’词汇是语义相关的综合系统。

The words of language can be classified into sets.语言的词汇可以分成语义相关的集或场。