Sense relations - identity

Studienarbeit aus dem Jahr 2011 im Fachbereich Amerikanistik - Linguistik, Bayerische Julius-Maximilians-Universität Würzburg, Sprache: Deutsch, Abstract: One possible definition of sense relations is: ¿Any relation between lexical units within the semantic

system of a language¿, (Matthews 1997:337). This means that there has to be a relation in meaning

between lexical units of a language. It does not matter if this relation expresses some kind of identity

or non-identity. One could also define sense relations as ¿a paradigmatic relation between words or

predicates¿. ¿Paradigmatic relations are those into which a linguistic unit enters through being

contrasted or substitutable, in particular environment, with other similar units¿, (Palmer 1981:67). In

other words, a paradigmatic relation is a relation where an individual lexical unit can be replaced by

another.

A less scientific approach to sense relations is made by David Crystal: ¿We have a sense relation

when we feel that lexemes relate to each other in meaning¿, (Crystal 2003: 164).

The most common relations in meaning between lexical units are Synonymy and Antonymy.

Whereas the latter one belongs to a group of sense relations which express a non-identity, the first

one is the most known type of identity-expressing sense relations. Together with Hyponymy, Crystal

calls them the ¿chief types of lexical sense relations¿. But in the field of semantics, there are far

more possibilities of expressing a relation in sense. For example, there are Paraphrase, Homonymy,

member-collection and portion-mass relationships, which all express a special kind of identity. In

this term paper, the focus lies on sense relations expressing a form of identity, sameness or identical

traits.