In order to know the meaning of the term hyperonym that concerns us now, it is necessary, first of all, to proceed to discover its etymological origin. In this case, we can establish that it is the result of the sum of two lexical components, one from Greek and the other from Latin:
-The word “hyper” comes from Greek and we can establish that it means “above” or “on.”
-The Latin element “onymus” which, in turn, emanates from the Greek “onymos”.
Likewise, we cannot ignore that hypernym is a technicality that was given shape within the scope of Structural Semantics at the beginning of the 20th century.
The concept of hypernym is used in the field of linguistics to name the term whose meaning is present in the meaning of other words . It is a word that can be used to refer to the reality that names another more specific concept.
While the meaning of the hypernym is included in another word, the hyponym is the term whose meaning encompasses that of another. Just as “mammal” is a hypernym of “dog” , “dog” is a hyponym of “mammal” .
Other examples that we can use to understand what a hypernym is are the following:
-Clothing is the synonym for skirt, shirt, dress, pants, t-shirt, top or jacket.
-Housing is the hypernym of house, flat, chalet, loft or apartment.
-Furniture is the hypernym of chair, table, sideboard, sofa, armchair or small table.
-Coffee is the hypernym for decaffeinated, expresso, cappuccino or cut.
-Reptile is the hypernym of alligator, turtle, lizard, chameleon, crocodile, iguana, Komodo dragon or cobra, for example.
All the semantic features of the hypernym are present in its hyponym. On the other hand, the hyponym has semantic features that allow it to be differentiated from the hypernym. Returning to the previous example , “mammal” is a hypernym of “dog” since all the characteristics of “mammals” are present in “dogs” or, in other words, all “dogs” are “mammals” . In the definition of “dog” , on the contrary, there are traits that do not correspond to all “mammals” : while all “dogs” are “mammals” , not all “mammals” are “dogs” .
It is common for hypernyms to be used to avoid repeating words in a text . In this way, the following paragraph can be written: “He was surprised to find a dog in the middle of the desert. He wondered how the animal had managed to get there, far from everything. Where could this mammal that looked so healthy and happy have gotten food? If he could solve the dilemma, perhaps he could be saved.”
Hypernyms, in short, are general words that encompass more specific words in their meaning. “Furniture” , to cite another case, is a hypernym for “table” , “closet” and “bed” .
In addition to everything stated above, we can highlight other data of interest in this regard. We are referring to, for example, that words that are hyponymous can also be hypernymous. An example would be fruit, which is a word that acts as a hyponym for food and that, at the same time, can be a hypernymous word for banana, strawberry, orange, pear, apple, tangerine, kiwi or peach.