Meronymy vs Hyponymy - What's the difference?
meronymy | hyponymy |
(semantics) The relationship of being a constituent part or member of something; a system of meronyms.
* 1995 , Jürgen Handke, The Structure of the Lexicon: Human Versus Machine ,
* 1999 , Sylvia Adamson, 7: Literary Language'', Roger Lass (editor), ''The Cambridge History of the English Language: Volume III: 1476-1776 ,
* 2003 , M. Lynne Murphy, Semantic Relations and the Lexicon: Antonymy, Synonymy and Other Paradigms ,
(semantics) The semantic relation between hyponyms; the quality of being hyponymous.
In semantics terms the difference between meronymy and hyponymy
is that meronymy is the relationship of being a constituent part or member of something; a system of meronyms while hyponymy is the semantic relation between hyponyms; the quality of being hyponymous.meronymy
English
Noun
page 90,
- This relationship of meronymy''''' is controversial for various reasons. First, there are several types of '''meronymy''', such as functional '''meronymy''', where one concept is a functional part of another (e.g. FINGER-HAND) or more general part-whole relations, where the part and the whole exist as a continuous entity (e.g. FLAME-FIRE). Secondly, there are diverging opinions as to whether ' meronymy should be treated as a semantic primitive in the sense of [syn]onymy, antonymy, and hyponymy.
page 564,
- But whereas hyponymy is a member—class relation, reflecting a taxonomy or conceptual hierarchy, meronymy is a part—whole relation, reflecting the existence of complex structures in concrete reality.
pages 233-234,
- Possession, like meronymy', is described in English (and equivelently in other languages) with the verb ''to have'' (A millionaire has money) and the line between possession and part-having is fuzzy at best.Priss (1998) suggests that '''meronymy''' might be formalized as an attribution relation, such that HAS-A-HANDLE-FOR-A-PART would be an attribute of ''hammer'' and ''cup''. Thus, the case for separating attribution and possession from ' meronymy is not strong.
