Notes by Lex Toumbourou

Lexical Semantics is the branch of linguistics and NLP that studies how words encode meaning and relate to each other.

Hypernyms and Hyponyms

These describe the hierarchical "is-a" relationship in lexical semantics.

Hypernym refers to the more general - or superordinate - term: an "animal" is a hypernym of dog. Think "hyper" -> over/above like hyperactive, for higher, broader category.

Hyponym is the more specific (subordinate) term: "dog" is a hyponym of animal.

Think "hypo" -> under/below like hypothermia for the lower, specific term.

In RDFS the rdfs:subClassOf predicate captures the hyponym -> hypernym relationship between terms.

Hyponymy

The relationship between hypernyms and hyponyms is called "hyponymy": e.g., "dog is-a animal".