Delahunty and Garvey
Saw
Chop saw Miter saw Table saw Ripsaw Hand saw Hacksaw
In this instance, the meaning and the form saw occur in each of the hypo-
nyms, which, in spite of their spellings, are all compound words. We must
mention here that not all groups of words that could be regarded as consti-
tuting a set of coordinates have a lexical superordinate. As far as we know,
there is no single term that encompasses doors and windows, even though
these are openings in walls for light, air, people, and refrigerators to pass
through.
Dictionaries make extensive use of hyponymy to define words. For in-
stance, WNTC defines orator as “a person who delivers an oration.” (p.
1257) and an oration as “an elaborate speech or discourse.. .” (p. 1257). So
an orator is a kind of person and an oration is a kind of speech. The remain-
ing parts of the definition tell us what kind of person an orator is and what
kind of speech an oration is, as well as how orators are distinct from other
kinds of persons, and orations from other kinds of speeches.
Dictionaries also make use of part/whole and part/part relationships
to define words. There are several types of these. When these relationships
apply to unified objects, they are called partonymy, or less transparently,
meronymy. For example, the covers and pages are parts of books; the engine,
trunk, carburetor, and fan belt are parts of cars. The crankshaft is a part of
the engine of a car. WNWD defines capital^2 as “the top part of a column
or pilaster” (p. 210). Meronymic relationships apply not only to physical ob-
jects but extend to temporal relationships (day/week), events (inning/baseball
game), and even to quite abstract entities (self-control/maturity).
Because hyponymy and partonymy differ in the semantics of the rela-
tionships—kind of vs. part of—they differ in how lower order terms relate
to superordinates of superordinates. In hyponymy, the lower order term is
a kind of its superordinate and of its superordinate’s superordinate; for in-
stance, a standard poodle is a kind of poodle, and a poodle is a kind of dog. But
a standard poodle is also a kind of dog. On the other hand, a lower order term
in a partonymy may or may not be a part of the superordinate; for instance,
a page is a part of a book and a book may be part of a library, but it would
certainly be odd to claim that a page is part of a library.
Other part/whole relations refer not to parts and wholes of unified ob-