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WORD This is a word 
WORDS are regarded as the - Smallest units of a language
- Indivisible
- Meaningful

which can operate INDEPENDENTLY

WORD…or should I say FORMS (of expression)
Slow, Slowly, Slower LEXICAL MEANING

Lexical meaning is the

individual meaning
each word has in the

SLOW
system of language,
without paying attention
to the way that it is used
a motion which not or to something that occur
with it.
moving quickly,
taking a long time
,not fast
Lexical and Grammatical meaning

Grammatical meaning
Category: LOVELY
An expression in - Te n s e
- Mood
speech of relationships
between words
- Aspect LOVELIER
- Vo i c e
based on contrastive
- Number
features of arrangements - Person LOVELIEST
in which they occur. - Comparison
Lexical and Grammatical meaning

1. Different forms of the word will share the same lexical meaning,
but different grammatical meanings.

2. Different words may share the same grammatical meaning but

different lexical meanings.
Example: Eat, Pray, Love, Hate. (V-inf) (different actions, feelings)
HOMONYMY
 La souris sourit sous le riz!

we can can a can!!!

Bữa qua, "qua" nói "qua" qua mà "qua

" hổng qua. Bữa nay, "qua" nói "qua"
hổng qua mà "qua" lại qua!
 HOMONYMY

HOMO NYMY

A homonym is a word that is written and (or) pronounced the same wa

y as another, but has a different meaning and origin.
 Partial
Homonyms

H
O Homographs
M
Absolute O Homophones
Homonyms N Full
Y Homonyms
HOMONYMY
M
Y
 Absolute
Homonyms Grammatical
Unrelated
Equivalent
Meaning

BANK

Identical
Forms
 Partial
Homonyms

Full Identical in pronunciation and spelling

Homonyms
Ex: Bark (n) the outer covering of a tree
Bark (v) (of a dog) to make a loud

Homophones Identical in pronunciation

Homographs
Identical in spelling

Ex: wind /wind/ (n) a curent of air

wind /waind/ (v) to empower a clock
 How To Eliminate GRAMMATICAL
Ambiguity??? EQUIVALENCE!!!
CONTEXT!!!
Which Which type of
meaning? homonym?
GRAMMATICAL Ex: I'm early - my watch must be fast.
EQUIVALENCE!!! -> fast (adj): acting or moving rapidly
One day a week he fasts for health reasons.
-> fast (v): abstain from food

CONTEXT!!!
Lexical context Grammatical context
The words or phrases that are The grammatical structure in
used with the homonyms. which a homonym is used.

Ex: Ex: I met her at the bank.

a mug boy – a mug of cocoa - I met her at the bank
rubber soles – Dover sole where she work.
- I met her at the bank on which
these flowers grow.
Disintegration / split of polysemy
buxus (Latin)
box : a kind of small evergreen shrub
box : a receptacle made of wood
box : to put in a box
box : a slap with the hand on the ear
box : a sport term

Convergent sound development

sound - healthy  zesund (healthy)
sound - strait  sund (swimming)

Borrowing
sound : measure the depth of the sea
sonus (French) : to measure the depth
 SYNONYMY
What is SYNONYMS?
Synonyms are actually words of the same parts of speech
which have similar or same meanings.

E.g: small – little

happy – cheerful
big - large
Synonym comes from Ancient Greek word sýn
(σύν; "with") and ónoma (ὄνομα; "name“)

Synonym  Calling the same things

Synonyms can be nouns, verbs, adverbs or adjectives, but both words
must be of the same part of speech.

Noun – Noun
Verb – Verb
Adj - Adj
 SYNONYMS DENOTATION

CONNOTATION
• Accident – disaster – misfortune – smashup
 Different in denotation
• Father – dad – papa – daddy – pop – pa
Different in connotation

 It depends on the context when you use.

E.g.
If you eat chocolate before a meal, it will spoil/ruin your appetite.
If you eat chocolate before a meal, it will harm/damage you appetite.

It came as a complete surprise to me when she married him.

It came as a full/entire surprise to me when she married him.

 ABSOLUTE SYNONYMY

Lyons (1995) talks about absolute synonymy.

Three conditions:
1. All their meanings are identical;
2. They are synonymous in all contexts;
3. They are semantically equivalent (i.e. their meaning or meanings are
identical) on all dimensions of meanings and descriptive and non-descriptive.
They live in a big/large house.

Big – large: fail to meet condition (1) – all their meanings are identical.
 Partial synonyms.

Near synonyms:
Mist – fog
Stream – brook  Differ in terms of denotation.
Ask – beg
Like - love
She is making a big mistake.
She is making a large mistake.

 Unacceptable collocationally.

My mother go to the market to buy some artificial flowers.

My mother go to the market to buy some false flowers.
• Descriptively synonymous
Big – large
Small – little

• Non-descriptively synonymous (Expressive)

Huge – enormous
Crafty – skillful
Statesman - politician
 Conclusion: Absolute synonymy is extremely rare.

DOES ABSOLUTE SYNONYM EXIST?

Classification of Synonyms

8000 synonymic
groups
 Absolute(total) Synonyms

Semantic Synonyms

Stylistic Synonyms

SYNONYMS Semantic Stylistic Synonyms

Phraseological Synonyms

Territorial Synonyms

Euphemisms
 7 main groups
1. Absolute Synonyms
• All their meanings are identical
• They are synonymous in all context
E.g: semantics - semasiology
substantive – noun
2. Semantic Synonyms
• Differ in terms of their denotation.
E.g: look - glance
Discuss - debate - argue
 7 main groups
3. Stylistic Synonyms
• Differ in terms of their connotation.
E.g: police - cop - bobby
father - dad - daddy

4. Semantic-Stylistic Synonyms
• Differ both in denotational and connotational meaning.
E.g: reduce - axe – cut down
talk - speak - say
allow - permit - let
 7 main groups
5. Phraseological Synonyms
• Differ in their collocations.
E.g: do - make
much – many
language - tongue
6. Territorial Synonyms
• Be employed in different regions.
E.g: pavement - sidewalk
football - soccer
 7 main groups
7. Euphemism Synonyms
• Be used to reduce the unpleasant / offensive effect.
E.g: die - pass away - be gone – be no more
crisis - slow down - depression
deceased - dead
Sources of Synonyms

 Borrowings
 The change of meaning
 Word-building
 3 main sources
1. Borrowings
• Being borrowed from Greek, Latin and French
E.g: ask - question - interrogate
gather - assemble - collect
end - finish – complete
2. The change of meaning
E.g: Hand - worker - side, direction
Busy - engaged (telephone line)
 3 main sources
3. Word-building
• Use or creation of phrasal verb
E.g: to take care - to look after
• Conversion
E.g: Laughter - laugh
• Shortening
E.g: telephone - phone
minimum - min
• Derivation and composition
E.g: police - policeman - policewoman
deceptive – deceitful
 Exercises
1. Handsome - beautiful Semantic synonyms
2. Redundant - be out of job/unemployed Euphemism
3. Autumn – fall Territorial synonyms
4. Pair – couple Phraseological synonyms
5. Friend – mate - peer Stylistic synonyms
 Lexical variants and
paronyms

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 Lexical variants
Not Examples
conditionedofby
freethe
variations of
contextual
Optional with speaker
language
environment

Lexical variants is the differences in words or phrases, by comparing the way English
is spoken in different places.
 Lexical variants
Example

- Northwards & Northward & Norward

- Whoever & Whosoever

- Whiskey & Whisky

Lexical variants vs Synonyms
Lexical variants Synonyms

- Lexical variants are different word forms for - Synonyms are different terms for the
the same expression. same concept.
E.g: favourite vs favorite E.g : Big vs large Freedom vs Liberty
theatre vs theater Tall vs high

- They are characterised by similarity in phone

tical or spelling form and identity of both mea
ning and distribution.
Lexical variants vs Synonyms

American English British English

Adult Adult
Buffet Buffet
Garage Garage
Lexical variants vs Synonyms
 Lexical variants

online / on-line polyvinyl chloride /

Radar antennas / Romania / Rumania / pediatrics / paediatrics mice / mouse
PVC
Antennas, radar Roumania man / men..
Moslems / Muslims World Bank / WB

Electric power plans /

Power plans, electric
 Paronyms

Paronyms
E.g: are and
ingenious words that are kindred in origin, sound form and meaning but in
ingenuous
A paronym is a word that is derived from the same root as another word
fact affect
different semantically
and effect and in usage.
alternate and alternative
• Definition
ANTONYMY
• Defining antonymy and
oppositeness
Thach Hoang Son
• Chracteristics
• Classification
• Exercise
 DEFINITION

LEXICAL SEMANTIC
“An anonym is a word so opposed in meaning to another word; it is equal in
breadth Equality
or rangein of
range, breadth that is,Oppositeness
application, negates or in meaning
nullifies every single one
of its implications” Hot><cold
(temperature, feeling, emotion)

Lexicographer Egan (1968)

 COMPARISON
SYNONYMY ANTONYMY
Same meaning Opposite meaning
A relation between lexical A relation between words, not
concepts concepts
Eg: Bad - terrible – awful Eg: fast-slow; male-female
speedy-sluggish

Justeson and Katz (1991)

 ANTONYMY AND
OPPOSITENESS
ANTONYMY OPPOSITENESS
• Refer to the pair-wise relation
of lexical items in context that • Refer to the semantic relation
are understood to be between antonym pairs
semantically opposite

Eg: happy-sad; Eg: tubby-emaciated;

heavy-light speedy-sluggish
 ANTONYMY AND
OPPOSITENESS
TUBBY EMACIATED
Short and slightly fat Thin and weak, usually because of
illness and lack of food
 CHARACTERISICS
 Belong to the same semantic field, nearly identical in distribution
e.g. old – young (about age)

 Do not differ either in style or emotional coloring.

e.g. It is small/ big/ tiny/ huge.

 In many pairs of antonyms, one is marked and the other unmarked

e.g. “How old is he?” Not “How young is he?”
 CLASSIFICATION
COVENTIONALLY CLASSIFIED
 Root word antonyms (Antonyms proper)
Words that are of different forms and of opposite meanings.
e.g. old - young heavy - light hot – cold happy - sad

 Derivational antonyms
Words of the same root, one of which have a negative affix.
e.g. happy - unhappy logical - illogical
perfect - imperfect regular - irregular
JOHN LYON’S CLASSIFICATION
Antonyms proper Conversives

Complementary Directional
antonyms Antonyms
 PROPER ANTONYMS
(GRADABLE ANTONYMS)
Antonyms proper are easily gradable, based on the operation of gradation.
They are opposite ends of a continuous scale of values.

 One of the anomym pairs is the cover term, which is known as unmark.
 They
Old – are
Young mainly adjective ( big – small, hot – cold..)
They
They
How areare
old isgradable,
graded differ
he? basedinonterms of degree
different norms
huge/very big/BIG/quite
a small big/medium-sized/quite
car > a big apple small/SMALL/tiny
 COMPLEMENTARY

ANTONYMS
Involve two items: the assertion of one is the negation of the other
Dead - alive

 The norm is absolute

male – female (for both human and animal)

 There is no cover term or covered term

 COMPLEMENTARY
ANTONYMS
GRADABLE COMPLEMENTATY

Gradable Non gradable

Different norm Same norm

Cover term and covered term No cover term and cover term
 CONVERSIVES
 Conversives denote the same situation but from different points
of view, with a reversal of the order of participants and their roles

 One should presupposes the other as for the two members

that involved in an antonym pair
husband/wife, doctor/patient, teacher/student, buy/sell,
above/below and employer/employee
 EXCEPTION
CHILD

Daughter or son Under 18

Parents Adult
 DIRECTIONAL
ANTONYMS
 Present opposite directions of motion.

e.g. arrive - depart

up - down
Beautiful-Ugly
EXERCISE
Illegal-legal Wide-narrow
Lend-Borrow

Beginning- Expensive-
True-False
end cheap

Come-Go Buy-Sell

COMPLEMENTATY
DIRECTIONAL

GRADABLE CONVERSIVE
 Completely Free 

… with
Group 1
 Full and Empty Words

WORDS

FULL WORDS EMPTY WORDS

 FULL WORDS

 Having lexical meaning rather than grammatical mean

ing
 Functioning as the notional parts of speech ( su
ch as nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs… )

Examples: beach, black, cook,...

Full and Empty Words

 Full and Empty Words

WORDS

FULL WORDS EMPTY WORDS

 EMPTY WORDS

 Defined in terms of their syntactic function, rath

er than semantically ( having lexical meaning)
 syncategorematic - as forms whose meanings and l
ogical function derives from the way in which they
combine with major categories
 Consisting of articles, conjunctions, certain pron
ouns, prepositions…
Examples: because, it, on,...
Note: empty words a.k.a function words, grammat
ical words, structural words

Full and Empty Words

 COMPARISON
FULL WORDS EMPTY WORDS

 LEXICAL (RATHER THAN GR  MOSTLY GRAMMATICAL

MEANING
AMMATICAL)  NO OR LITTLE LEXICAL

FUNCTION • NOTIONAL • SYNTACTIC

APPEARANCE • MAJOR • MINOR

Full and Empty Words

Aight, let’s take a look at a few examples:

The quick brown fox jumps over the lazy doge

Chuck Norris can kill two stones with one bird

Full and Empty Words

 EASY EXERCISES
Full or empty ?
Conjunctions Empty Words

Nouns Full Words

Verbs Full Words

Prepositions Empty Words

Adjectives Full Words

Pronouns Can be both

Full and Empty Words
• Every word combines a lexical
meaning and grammatical meaning
• Synonyms are the words of the
same part of speech sharing a
similarity of both connotation
and denotation
• Homonyms are the lexical items
which are formally identical in
some ways: phonetically,
orthographically or both
• Antonyms can be of three types:
gradable, conversive and
complementary
 SPECIAL THANKS

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