Talk:Hypernymy and hyponymy

Typo & Link Suggestion
concerning: "In his classic formulation, the linguist C.E. Bazell stated, 'There is a relation of hyponymy when one word may invariable be replaced by a second word, but not vice-versa, without change of meaning.'" i assume 'invariable' is meant to be 'invariably', especially considering the source of the quote is a linguist. as an aside, i think hyponymy describes a non-commutative synonymy between two words. (e.g., i could use "temperature" in place of "fever" everytime, but not "fever" in place of "temperature" everytime. e.g., "he shouldn't exhaust himself because of his 'fever'." can be expressed (albeit less specifically) as "he shouldn't exhaust himself because of his 'temperature'.") so, a link to "commutivity" or the like may be good for this reason. Factotum 04:59, 31 Jan 2004 (UTC)

Latest revision
Why has a whole chunk of text been taken out? In my opinion it serves to explain the concept in a manner that is easier to understand. Little muddy funkster 18/05/05

opening line
The opening line "A hypernym is a word whose extension includes the extension of the word of which it is a hypernym."... what the hell does that mean? That's like "Red is the colour which red objects can be said to have" or "The north is the place to the north of an understood location"... Imĵalo

I'm quite certain that the automobile and vehical example is backwards.... Hopefully someone agrees with me and can confirm that and change it. I'm not confident enough to change it.

Greek word
According to the article for -onym linked from this article, "hypernym" is an "incorrectly formed neologism". Based on that and what I do know about Greek etymology, the listed Greek word υπερνύμιον should not exist. Tsunomaru 02:08, 15 November 2007 (UTC)

red::colour
"According to Fromkin and Rodman, hyponyms are a set of related words whose meaning are specific instances of a more general word (so, for example, red, white, blue, etc., are hyponyms of colour). Hyponymy is thus the relationship between a general term such as polygon and specific instances of it, such as triangle".

Is this specific example used by Fromkin and Rodman? I ask because this paragraph seems to conflate two relations: is-subclass-of (which is what hyponymy has always meaned to me) and is-instance-of. Red is not a subclass of colour; "X is red" does not entail "X is a colour". No definition I've been able to find supports the is-instance-of interpretation. Can anyone give justification for keeping it in the article? Ilkali (talk) 08:44, 7 May 2008 (UTC)


 * I think that the definition given by Fromkin and Rodman is correct. I think that the hyponymy relations includes (partially!) two relations: is-subclass-of and is-instance-of.


 * "Red is not a subclass of colour." I am not sure. It depends on your defition of the class.


 * ("X is red" does not entail "X is a colour".) I suppose that the hyponymy relation "red::color" (in this (particular!) case) is more similar to the relation is-instance-of than to is-subclass-of. --AKA MBG (talk) 19:25, 7 May 2008 (UTC)

vehicles
The standard quick definition of "vehicle" is something with wheels... so a ship is not a vehicle. Is a dogsled, used in the example, a vehicle? Or is it a conveyance but not a vehicle? Monado (talk) 10:57, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * Article talk pages are for discussion of improvement of the respective articles. This isn't a forum. Ilkali (talk) 11:01, 23 June 2008 (UTC)
 * And the question is about the accuracy of something stated in the article. — trlkly 04:05, 5 June 2014 (UTC)

Merge
The article "umbrella term" is introduced with: An umbrella term is a word that provides a superset or grouping of related concepts, also called a hypernym, where hypernym links to this page (hyponymy). Well, if they are synonymous, as this indiciates, then why should there be two different articles? Then there's blanket term, which I also find difficult to distinguish from umbrella term. I propose that either: I'm leaning towards #1, but I'm no linguist. /skagedal... 13:42, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * 1) The articles are merged into one, being descriptions of the same concept; or
 * 2) The articles are kept separate, but clearly stating how they differ and relate to the other terms.
 * Another option could be to merge blanket term and umbrella term, but leave hyponymy separate as the technical, linguistic term for this.  Linguist At Large  17:41, 20 November 2008 (UTC)
 * I agree with this. Umbrella term and blanket term are basically the same thing. Hyponymy is different precisely because it is a technical term. bd2412  T 05:06, 3 December 2008 (UTC)
 * Don't merge, per LinguistAtLarge. As suggested, the difference should be described in the articles. --Vsion (talk) 18:59, 11 December 2008 (UTC)
 * closing discussion with consensus to keep the hyponymy article. ps: i believe "blanket term" can be considered a hyponym to "hyponymy" - all blanket terms are hyperonyms, but all hyperonyms are not blanket terms. k kisses 19:45, 18 July 2011 (UTC)

Hypernym Is a Misspelling of Hyperonym
The subject line says it all. PlaysInPeoria (talk) 04:34, 17 January 2009 (UTC)

A bit of searching reveals that both hypernym and hyperonym are used by linguists, and both terms are acceptable etymological variants of the Greek, e.g. Etymology: from hyper- above, extra + -(o)nym name. in Gk.:, literally meaning 'name above' [] Hypernym is used in linguistics text books, e.g. Finegan, E. and Besnier, N. (1989) Language:  Its Structure and Use. Hyperonym is preferred by other linguists, seemingly because of a more direct Greek derivation. Manfred Stede explains that hyperonym is "alternatively called 'hypernym' in many publications: 'hyperonym' seems preferable, as the Greek root is 'hyper' (super) + 'onoma' (name)." [http://www.aclweb.org/anthology-new/W/W00/W00-1413.pdf Stede, M. (2000). The hyperonym problem revisited: Conceptual and lexical hierarchies in language generation. In Proceedings of the first international conference on Natural language generation - Volume 14] Hyperonym(e) is also used in other languages such as German and French, for example see the entry for hyperonyme in Dubios et al (1973). Dictionnaire de linguistique. HLTLinguist (talk) 17:40, 23 June 2009 (UTC)HLTLinguist
 * D***. Nice work researching. I looked at the paper by Stede you provided and verified this. You provided a reference to a formal research paper by a linguist, so what I'll do is basically fill in the "citation needed" in the article with your link(s).
 * I wouldn't say it's a misspelling so much as a preferred term. Anyhoo, this is WP:V. Going to change the article. meteor_sandwich_yum (talk) 21:43, 5 January 2014 (UTC)


 * Do citable English native speakers exist who prefer the term hyperonym? I'm asking because Stede is from Berlin and hyperonym is the canonical name among the German linguistic community. It strikes me odd that each time I read hyperonym in a publication, the author turns out to be a German. --93.207.95.254 (talk) 18:33, 6 August 2014 (UTC)

What does superordinate mean?
Superordinate redirects to Hyponymy, but there is no mention of superordinate in the Hyponymy article. Please define superordinate and its relationship to hyponymy. 204.210.242.157 (talk) 15:04, 29 May 2009 (UTC)
 * The repair of that egregious redirection has been begun as i write, and will shortly be completed by its conversion to a Dab. --Jerzy•t 16:30, 15 July 2016 (UTC)

Brief Review
My students revised this page for a course (HG2052: Language, Technology and the Internet) and I am adding a couple of comments as the final review. Francis Bond (talk) 14:40, 14 November 2014 (UTC)
 * I think the page is vastly improved, and the diagram is great
 * the page still lacks a good lede
 * it would be good to have more discussion of
 * transitivity (it only works locally)
 * types of hypernyms (e.g. troponyms)
 * I took out the whole section on Relation of class to subclass, as it was not so relevant
 * it is well referenced
 * it is broad in its coverage (although could have been a bit deeper)
 * it is neutral, stable and illustrated

Verb typo?
"hyponyms in verbs are words that refer to a broad category of actions" seems to me to be the opposite of what is the case, "hypernyms in verbs are words that refer to a broad category of actions". This seems like a typo, but I'm not an expert in linguistics, a field where the terminology is a bit tricky.--Wcoole (talk) 00:19, 7 November 2015 (UTC)

I'm pretty positive you're correct. The description seems pretty contradictory given the earlier definition. Monsieurmatches (talk) 03:39, 30 November 2017 (UTC)

I fixed it. Francis Bond (talk) 02:33, 2 December 2017 (UTC)

Problematic Example Diagram?
The for Colors indicates that Crimson is a hyponym of Purple not (explicitly) of Red. However, the color crimson is often considered a type of the color red -- Crimson "Crimson is a strong, red color, inclining to purple. ...". Perhaps the P. R. Nelson Estate is laying the groundwork for a bequest to the Universities of Alabama or Harvard? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2602:306:CFE9:E0:C090:E369:53FA:F6D3 (talk) 00:19, 5 June 2016 (UTC)

hyponymy vs hyponymification
Hyponymy is the study of hyponyms but also the creation of them, hyponymification focuses more on their creation than their generic analysis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8227:A300:8DA3:34C2:25F3:9936 (talk) 01:45, 3 March 2018 (UTC)

Usage
The Usage section states "The notion of hyponymy is particularly relevant to language translation, as hyponyms are very common across languages."

I take this to mean that the reason for the particular relevance of hyponymy to language translation is that (allegedly) hyponyms are very common across languages.

What puzzles me about this assertion is that the example given is one which does not appear to support it.

The difficulty in the translation of the English word "brother" into Japanese exists solely because the hypernym/hyponym hierarchy with "sibling" at the top of the tree is NOT common between the two languages.

Is this a bad example or have I misunderstood?

46.208.76.254 (talk) 10:12, 12 July 2018 (UTC)


 * My interpretation is that the article is (awkwardly and indirectly) saying that cross-language hyponyms are a common phenomenon. The English-Japanese example given is an example of this: 「兄」　and 「弟」 are both hyponyms of the English "brother". Whether this counts as hyponymy as the term is used in academics I don't know, but if I'm reading the article correctly, that's how the article is using the word. The alternative interpretation is that many or most languages have hyponyms, which A) seems like a given and B) isn't directly relevant to the section.
 * There is in fact a Japanese word that means "sibling": 「きょうだい」 (kyoudai) . The primary kanji spelling of this is 「兄弟」&mdash;the very same as used for the words 「兄」 and 「弟」. Like the English "sibling" the word is irrespective of both sex and seniority.* What Japanese does not have is a word for "brother" that is irrespective of seniority but also unambiguously specifically male. This is what makes the English "brother" difficult to translate.
 * 107.4.45.152 (talk) 22:25, 8 February 2020 (UTC)
 * * 「兄弟」, iff spelled as such, has a sense that specifically means "male sibling", but that's an autohyponym and, as such, inherently ambiguous. The alternate spellings 「姉妹」, 「兄妹」, and 「姉弟」, may be used for greater specificity if one or more of a set of siblings is female, but you have no such option if it's just brothers.

A synonym of co-hyponym (?)
This sentence in the second paragraph confuses me: 'A synonym of co-hyponym based on same tier (and not hyponymic) relation is allonym (it means different name).' I suspect there is a better way to punctuate or re-word this sentence, but I’m new to this subject and not certain enough to do it. Pythagimedes (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:27, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Wrong title, correct: Hypernymy and hyponymy
Positive comes first; negative comes second. Big comes first, small comes second. The positive and negative charges might be arbitrary (not entirely because the nucleus is more important), but the philosophical senses of bigness and positivity come first. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:2149:8240:8C00:C133:C3E3:5082:8070 (talk) 20:18, 9 September 2020 (UTC)


 * In the "correct title," the first word should be spelled correctly as Hyperonymy. PlaysInPeoria (talk) 17:31, 1 September 2021 (UTC)

It's been three years, but I agree, the general comes first follow by the specific. Our article does this in the first sentence, but it's confusing to read since the title and bold part are reversed. I suspect the problem is alphabetical order, which is not the best way to name the article. -- Green  C  22:35, 19 January 2024 (UTC)

'Hypernym'
Since 'both hyperonym and hyponym are in use in linguistics', couldn't the article use the version that isn't blatantly incorrect from an etymological/philological/Classicist perspective? Apparently not only studying the classical languages, but even just doing your homework before forming neoclassical scientific terms based on them has gone out of fashion among one part of English-speaking linguists, but at least the proper variant isn't banned yet, so there is no obstacle to using it. 62.73.69.121 (talk) 09:02, 13 January 2024 (UTC)
 * The terms were coined in 1971 by S.G.J. Hervey, who used hypernym. In a 1972 article where he was co-author, he used "hyperonym". So I guess that doesn't help us decide.
 * According to Google ngrams, they were used about equally often from 1980-2000, and since 2002, hypernym has become much more common in both US and UK books. WP policy is generally to follow frequency, not correctness.
 * It's not uncommon for Greek words to be used to form English words irregularly. So we're stuck with henotheism, taxonomy, heuristic, etc. --Macrakis (talk) 23:44, 19 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Interesting "since 2002" is the same year this article was created. Citogenesis? But the trend was diverging since 1994, the year 2002 was when hyperonym peaked. Wikipedia final nail.  --  Green  C  00:19, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * , this leaves hypernym as a double redirect, which means you now have 94 pages with wikilinks which used to work, and which now land at a disambig page instead. Mathglot (talk) 23:18, 20 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Mathglot Good catch. I think this works better? Special:Diff/1136889538/1197562395 -- Green  C  01:44, 21 January 2024 (UTC)
 * Wow, a surprising number of broken redirects. Should be fixed now. A warning to anyone in the future contemplating a rename, check 'What links here' for double redirs. --  Green  C  01:56, 21 January 2024 (UTC)