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Taxonomy and semantic contrast

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  22 April 2026

Paul Kay
Paul Kay*
Affiliation:
University of California, Berkeley
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Abstract

The notions ‘taxonomy’ and ‘semantic contrast’ have played an important role in ethnographic semantics, but they are not so simple as is sometimes supposed. In particular, ‘level of contrast’ is an ill-defined and misleading term. When one formulates the notion ‘taxonomy’ in a precise way, as is done here, light is shed on several questions of lexical semantics involving the notion of semantic contrast. For example, several different types of semantic contrast relation, all appearing to have empirical reality, can be formally defined.

Information

Type
Research Article
Information
Language , Volume 47 , Issue 4 , December 1971 , pp. 866 - 887
Copyright
Copyright © 1971 by Linguistic Society of America

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