Introducing English Linguistics

syn-
onyms
, those with opposite meanings 
antonyms
. Words such as beagle or
poodle are 
co-hyponyms
: words whose meanings are included within the
Introduction
150
INTRODUCING ENGLISH LINGUISTICS

---

meaning of the more general word dog. Another more controversial way
of characterizing the meaning of words has been done in the area of com-
ponential analysis
. This kind of analysis involves defining words by break-
ing them down into their component parts and assigning them semantic
features. On one level, the words puppy and infant share the feature ‘newly
born.’ These words differ in that infant has the feature ‘human,’ while
puppy does not. However, this area of semantics has proven problematic,
primarily because it is difficult to determine exactly what semantic fea-
tures are needed. While it is important to discuss existent words in a lan-
guage, it is equally important to study the specific processes, known as