Hyponymy

Based on James R. Hurford, Brendan Heasley, and Michael B. Smith (2007) Hyponym is a sense relation between predicates (or sometimes longer phrases) such that the meaning of one predicate (or phrase) is included in the meaning of the other.[1] Moreover Cruse (1986) define that hyponymy is the lexical relation corresponding to the inclusion of one class in another.[2] In a simple word we can define hyponym as a word that describes things more specifically, e.g.

a.      Carrot and cabbage are hyponyms of vegetable

b.      Rose and jasmine are hyponyms of flower

The more general term is called the superordinate or hypernym.[3] In that term, vegetable, is more general or inclusive in meaning than its hyponym carrot, which is much more specific in the kind of vegetable it describes. In other words, the predicate vegetable describes a particular region in plant space whose prototype (or focal) examples are fairly distinct from those of other plants, though we have seen that more peripheral members of the extension of vegetable tend to fade into other plants. But the term also subsumes (includes) more specific kinds of red within this region of plants space. In general, sense relationships involving hyponymy are usually structured in this way, with the superordinate term more abstract, general, or schematic than its hyponyms.[4]

When we consider hyponymous relations, we are essentially looking at the meaning of words in some type of hierarchical relationship. You could, in fact, represent the relationships between a set of words such as animal, ant, rose, jasmine, cockroach, dog, flower, cat, insect, living things, plant, flower and vegetable as a hierarchical diagram in the following way:

From this diagram, we can say that "cat is a hyponym of animal" or that 'ant is a hyponym of insect'. We can also say that two or more terms which share the same superordinate (higher-up) term are co-hyponyms. So, cat and dog are co-hyponyms, and the superordinate term is animal. The relation of hyponymy captures the idea of 'is a kind of, as when you give the meaning of a word by saying "rose is a kind of flower". It is often the case that the only thing some people know about the meaning of a word in their language is that it is a hyponym of another term. That is, you may know nothing more about the meaning of rose other than that it is a kind of flower.

It is worth emphasizing that it is not only words for 'things' that are hyponyms. Terms for actions, such as cut, punch, shoot and stab, can all be found as co-hyponyms of the superordinate term injure.[5]
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[1] James R. Hurford, Brendan Heasley, and Michael B. Smith. Semantics a Coursebook (USA: Cambridge University Press, 2007) p. 109

[2] Cruse. D.A. Lexical Semantics (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1968) p. 88

[3] Saeed, John I. Semantics (Oxford: Blackwell pub ltd, 1997) p. 68

[4] James R. Hurford, Brendan Heasley, and Michael B. Smith. Semantics a Coursebook (USA:Cambridge University Press, 2007) p. 110                                                                             

[5] Yule, George. The study of language (New York: cambridge UNIVERSITY PRESS, 1996) p. 116-117