Misrepresenting Superordination (Hyponymy)

Martin (1992: 294-5):

Taxonomic relations are of two main types, depending on the kind of taxonomy they reflect.  Superordination relations reflect taxonomies based on subclassification (the "is a" relation); composition relations reflect taxonomies based on parts to wholes (the "has a" relation). … Some examples are presented in Table 5.4.

Table 5.4. Examples of superordination and composition
	superordination	composition
‘people’	player–first seed	team–player
‘places’	line–service line	court–line
‘things’	official–referee	racquet–strings
‘actions’	hit–volley	–
‘quality’	excellent-agile	–

Blogger Comments:

[1] This is the distinction between delicacy (hyponymy) and composition (meronymy).  The general sense of hyponymy is 'be a kind of' whereas for meronymy it is 'be a part of'.  The logical organisation of the former is the expansion type: elaboration, while the logical organisation of the former is the expansion type: extension.  Both of these expansion types cross-classify with the distinction between identity and class membership (see Halliday & Matthiessen 1999: 144-6).

[2] The claim here is that the person 'first seed' is a subclassification of the person 'player'.  Strictly speaking, 'first seed' identifies one of a group of players.  That is, it identifies a part of a whole.  The relation is therefore not one of superordination/delicacy/hyponymy.

[3] The claim here is that the quality 'agile' is a subclassification of the quality 'excellent'.  However, the two qualities are not even of the same type, since 'agile' is a behavioural propensity, whereas 'excellent' is an evaluation.  On the model of Halliday & Matthiessen (1999: 211), 'agile' is a quality of expansion, and 'excellent' a quality of projection.  The relation is therefore not one of superordination/delicacy/hyponymy.