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Is the relation between "night" and "day"
1/ a hyponymy?
2/ an antonymy? If antonymy, what kind of antonyms are they?

I need quick help.

LPH
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1 Answers1

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There is a definition of "hyponymy" in Wikipedia.

In linguistics, a hyponym (from Greek hupó, "under" and ónoma, "name") is a word or phrase whose semantic field is included within that of another word, its hyperonym or hypernym (from Greek hupér, "over" and ónoma, "name"). In simpler terms, a hyponym is in a type-of relationship with its hypernym.

For instance, "animal" stands in a relation of hypernymy to "cow" because a cow is a sort of animal. (Similarly "cow" stands in a relation of hyponymy to "animal".)
Night is not a sort of day and vice versa. So, there is no relation of hyponymy for those two.

There is a relation of antonymy between "night" and "day" (ref.).
There are three types of antonyms (ThoughtCo):
-- 1/ gradable, they operate on a continum (tall, short),
-- 2/ complementary, those express an either/or relationship (dead/alive)
-- 3/ converse or relational, and those express reciprocity (plus/minus, husband/wife, borrow/lend).
Must first be determined what is meant by night. Fundamental meanings are "the darkness which prevails during the period from sunset to dawn, also called night and "the period" itself.
If the darkness is what is meant, the particular sort of antonymy is gradable (progressive change from night to day). If the period is meant the sort of antonymy must be complementary (it's either night or day).

Edwin Ashworth
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LPH
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  • Enjoyed a most illuminating answer. From a computational standpoint, I see 1 as an analogue, whereas 2&3 are digital (either one or the other) and therefore overlapping to some extent. – Anton Oct 02 '20 at 06:49
  • @Anton As pertains to night and day, but more essentially to intensity of light, I agree mostly: an analog quantity or a continuum, that is, making abstraction from the fact that theoretically you can count photons, quantums of light. As pertains to the grammatical theory I see also a rough analogy: you pass from short to tall continuously from a practical point of view. I think I can relate to your next remark too, (1/2) – LPH Oct 02 '20 at 07:21
  • @Anton although it appearss that what you seem to perceive requires much abstraction; considering as mediums the existence of man and woman, the period of night and that of day, etc. is difficult for me. They would be mediums all with two discrete entities, an extreme but why not, there are often limit cases in the world of concepts. As the essential concept in the opposition analog/discrete is quantity I find a first stumbling block though when I try to relate the idea of quantity to those antonymous pairs. (2/2) – LPH Oct 02 '20 at 07:23
  • I would love to continue this interesting analysis using simple set theory but I suppose this is not the place for such indulgent pleasures. Thank you. – Anton Oct 02 '20 at 07:43
  • @Anton You could use the chat page, couldn't you? It might be too much dependent on an important personal theory to do that though… – LPH Oct 02 '20 at 07:52
  • @EdwinAshworth From this source and this one "morning", "afternoon", "evening" and "night" are divisions of the day; there is no question of their being a category of day; moreover the category recognized in this answer is uniquely time of day, which can't be the day. Further, this can be read in the Wikipedia article on hyponymy: "Hyponymy can be tested by substituting X and Y in the . (1/2) – LPH Oct 02 '20 at 16:44
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    @EdwinAshworth sentence ‘X is a kind of Y’ and determining if it makes sense.". There is no other criterion. Words representing divisions are not classified as hyponyms. Here is another definition that goes only as far as the preceding one: "Hyponymy, also known as the type_of or is_a relation, can be defined as a relation of inclusion based on similarity." (pdf: Extraction of hyponymic Relations in French with knowledge). (2/2) – LPH Oct 02 '20 at 16:44
  • Yes, you're right. I'm conflating set theory and hypernymy/hyponymy. There has to be an 'is a type of' as well as set hierarchy. With certain common definitions, a night is an element of the set of parts comprising a day. – Edwin Ashworth Oct 02 '20 at 16:50