[Lexicog] lexical relation for boar - sow?

[Ronald Moe]

I'm not sure if there is a standard term. I would call them a "gender pair".
The term "antonym" is overused. There are many types of antonyms. The
prototypical antonym is a true positive:negative pair like fair:unfair. You
also need to be cautious when dealing with complex sets of related words. In
this case you have "pig, hog, swine, boar, sow, piglet, suckling (pig),
barrow". For many of us "pig" is the hypernym. But technically (or
archaically) "swine" is the hypernym and "pig" means the young of the
species. Irrespective of which is the hypernym, all these words are tied
together in a complex network of lexical relations. Good luck in trying to
sort out all the relations and recording them in your dictionary. I would
rather just assign them all to the semantic domain "Pig" and leave it at
that.

 

I find lexical relations to be a very messy field, especially where pigs are
concerned. (Pun intended.)

 

Ron Moe

 

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From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
[mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of lengosi
Sent: Friday, February 24, 2012 9:29 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: [Lexicog] lexical relation for boar - sow?

 

  

Is there a widely accepted lexical relation to describe male-female pairs of
animals (e.g., boar and sow)? They seem to be (co)hyponyms of some sort;
probably not antonyms. Specifics of a Generic (pig)?

Well, I'll make an end of showing my ignorance. ;-) Thanks for any guidance,

Paul



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