Lexical semantics: hyponyny networks assignment

It is important, however, to refine the concept of ‘ what it is’: if this is taken to include a material concept as well as a typical one, i. e. , what it is made up of or consists of, there is more scope for what can be considered a classifier. Under this description both ‘ serum’ and white blood cell’ can be considered as classifiers of ‘ colostrum’. This does not seem to be correct though, as ‘ colostrum’ is not a type of serum or white blood cell, nor does it possess enough of the characteristics of either to qualify as a hyponym.

Therefore, in such cases we can eliminate concepts about the material of which a referent of the given sense consists as candidates for classifiers. Having established the criteria for identifying classifiers it should now be easier to identify those for the remaining senses however, there are further difficulties. It is safe to say that ‘ substance’ is the classifier of ‘ secretion’ according to the above rule but the use of ‘ substance’ twice in the definition provides potential for confusion: according to the definition for ‘ secretion’ above we can make the following statement: (A) a secretion is a substance1 made up of substances2.

This can be further refined when the concepts ‘ glandular’ and ‘ blood’ are considered as these relate specifically to ‘ body’, not just to any organism in general. We can thus replace ‘ organism’ and instead state that a ‘ secretion’ is a ‘ substance particular to a body’ or, more concisely, it is a ‘ bodily substance’. A second gap exists between ‘ bodily substance’ and ‘ substance’ for the same reason as above: arguably, a ‘ bodily substance’ has characteristics shared with other types of particular substance that together constitute a more general type of substance.

As mentioned above ‘ organism’ bears a relation to ‘ organic material’ in that all of the substances of which an organism is composed are organic. Given that a body is a kind of organism any bodily substance must also be organic but not all organic material is of the body hence, ‘ organic material’ is a classifier of ‘ bodily substance’. These new facts can be added to Fig. 1) to provide a more complete sense network: Fig. 2) Full hyponymy chain for ‘ colostrum’.