What is a paradigmatic lexical relation?

A paradigmatic lexical relation is a culturally determined pattern of association between lexical units that

• share one or more core semantic components
• belong to the same lexical category
• fill the same syntactic position in a syntactic construction, and
• have the same semantic function.

Here is a table showing some common paradigmatic lexical relations in English with example sets and underlying structure:

• What is a synonym lexical relation?
• What is a generic-specific lexical relation?
• What is a whole-part lexical relation?
• What is an individual-group lexical relation?
• What is an opposite lexical relation?
• What is a rank lexical relation?
• What is a development lexical relation?
• What is a hierarchical lexical relation?
• What is a scalar property lexical relation?

Context for this page:

• Concept module: paradigmatic lexical relation
• In overview module: Glossary (Linguistics): P
• In modular book: Glossary of linguistic terms, by Eugene E. Loos (general editor), Susan Anderson (editor), Dwight H., Day, Jr. (editor), Paul C. Jordan (editor), and J. Douglas Wingate (editor)
• In bookshelf: Linguistics

This page is an extract from the LinguaLinks Library, Version 5.0 published on CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003. [Ordering information.]

Page content last modified: 23 April 2002

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