National open university of nigeria school of arts and social sciences

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big, large, enormous, mighty and small, little, tiny, petit
happy, glad, joyful and sad, dejected, unhappy

rich, affluent, wealthy and poor, indigent,

strange and familiar
Now, let us construct texts that portray the use of antonymy as lexical device for connection.
Note: That no two words are absolutely synonymous in every context of use, likewise, no two words are absolutely antonymous.
13.7. Goliath was a mighty man. Despite that David was a little shepherd boy, he
was not intimidated by Goliath’s enormous size.

13.8. The man was so unhappy when he got sentenced to six months imprisonment.
However, a few weeks later, when he was set free he was so joyful.
13.9. In Lagos, the places where you find the affluent are Ikoyi, Victoria Island,
Victoria Garden City, Ikeja GRA, and so forth. The indigent are found in parts
of Ajegunle, Mushin, and Agege

13.10. The twins have different traits. Taiwo is fast, though oftentimes shoddy in doing
things. However, Kehinde is sluggish, but always comes out perfect inmost of
the things he does.
3.5 Hyponymy

Hyponymy is a relationship of inclusion. In Hyponymy, the meaning of a lexical item is includes in the meaning of another one. Hyponymy operates in such away that there is an item regarded as the general item, also technically called the superordinate, which subsumes other words, which are the hyponyms. Readers/listeners are able to connect hyponyms and superordinates in texts, even when there is no proximity in their occurrence within the text. Examples of some English words that have relationship of hyponymy are listed below.
vegetable – lettuce, okra, cabbage, water leaf, beans, potato, carrot


insect – grasshopper, cockroach, termite, praying mantis


computer – laptop, desktop, palmtop, digital wristwatch, mobile phone


cat – pussycat, tiger, puma, leopard, lion, cheetah

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clothes – shirt, trousers, blouse, skirt, coat, cardigan,


flower – hibiscus, rose, daffodil, rose periwinkle, lilly


Now, let us use some of these hyponyms in text to signal cohesion.
13.11. My mother loves flowers. Her favourite ones are rose and lilly.

13.12. A lion is such a fearful animal. Nobody dares to stand without shaking
at the first sight of the big cat.

13.13
Most of my clothes are now dirty. I hardly get a clean shirt to wear to
work. I still manage the trousers because of their dark colours. The cold
weather has really helped meas I often put on cardigans. They help to
cover my dirty shirts.

13.14 Computers are indispensable for every average person. One needs a

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