# heteronymy



## blabla31

Hi! I am studying linguistics, and in particular the oppositions, like antonymy and heteronomy. Can anyone explain to me the meaning of "heteronomy". I cannot find it anywhere. My book writes: " The relationship between the days of the week and the months of the year is called *incompatibility* or *heteronomy*, and involves more than two members of a category, which share one or more meaning elements and are mutually exclusive".


----------



## brian

Hmmm.. this is kind of difficult, and not made easier by the fact that linguists probably disagree on how to use this word, and the fact that this word may have different meanings depending on the context and the time period (within the timeframe of linguistics as a science) in which it's used.

The most common definition for _heteronomy_ in the field of linguistics--as far as I know--deals with dialects.

A language is _autonomous_ while dialects are _heteronomous_ with regard to some _autonomous_ language.

See here. The example is that Afrikaans used to be _heteronomous_ with respect to Dutch, until in the 1920s it became _autonomous _(it's own language).

The words come from Greek: _heteronomous =_ ἕτερος (_héteros_, "other, another") + νόμος (_nómos_, "custom, law") = "(of/according to/regarding) *another* custom/law." [_di/secondo/che riguarda *un'altra *usanza/legge_]

And: _autonomous _= αὐτός (_autós_, "same, oneself, one's own") + νόμος (_nómos_, "custom, law") = "(of/according to/regarding) *one's own* custom/law." [_di/secondo/che riguarda *la propria* usanza/legge_]

So I suppose (but I'm just guessing) that in your context, the days of the week are _heteronomous_ to the months of the year because they semantically follow the "meaning element" of the months of the year, instead of having its own "meaning element" (which would make it _autonomous_). And vice versa.

But I think more info/context would help, or the input of a real linguist.


----------



## winegrower

*Autonomy and heteronomy* are referring to the relationship between the notions of a language and dialect continuum, namely to the concepts of dialectic dependence and independence. For example certain varieties of the West Germanic dialect continuum are dialects of Dutch, while others are dialects of German because of the relationship these dialects bear to the respective standard languages. The Dutch dialects are heteronomous with respect to standard Dutch, and the German dialects to standard German. This means that speakers of the Dutch dialects look to the Dutch as their standard language which naturally corresponds to their vernacular varieties.
*Autonomy and heteronomy* are the result of political and cultural rather than linguistic factors and they are subject to change. An example of this is Southern Sweden which was initially part of Denmark and the spoken dialects were considered to be Danish, but, when it became part of Sweden, the same dialects became dialects of Swedish (they became heteronomous with respect to Swedish). Likewise the direction of autonomy can change or be lost, depending on political developments and other factors.


----------



## brian

Yeah, that's basically what I was saying, but where does _days of the week <-> months of the year_ come in?


----------



## tomzenith

Perhaps I've missed something, but isn't this is using hetronomy in the other way? As the antonym of homogeny?

Days of the week and months of the year are heteronymous simply because they are not the same, part of different systems.


----------



## sokol

Linguists typically would use "heteronym" for words on the same categorial level, like:

grain = hyperonym of wheat, rye, corn, millet, etc.
wheat (and all the others) = hyponym of grain
wheat = rye = corn = millet = ... = all those are *heteronyms *as they are semantically of the same category (kinds of grain), but hierarchially they are on the same level (names for a biological _genus)._

But of course there are plenty of different uses of "heteronym", blabla. The definition you quoted is (at least to me) one of the more exotic ones.


----------



## brian

Ok... let's not confuse two different terms:

1) *heteronym (-onymous)* : from Gk. ἕτερος (_héteros_, "other, another") + *ὄνομος* (_ónomos_, "name") = "of another *name*"; it's related to words like _synonym _and _antonym_.*

2) *heteronomy (-nomous)* : ἕτερος (_héteros_, "other, another") + *νόμος* (_nómos_, "custom, law") = "of another *custom/law*"; it's related to words like _autonomy_ (in politics).

As you can see, in (1) the "o" is part of "onym(a)", while in (2) the "o" is part of "hetero".

So it seems to me we are talking about (2), not (1). Yet sokol, your post talks about (1). 

*Edit: In case you're wondering why for _synonym, anonynmous, _etc. English uses "y" (usually corresponding to upsilon, υ) instead of "o" (for the omikron in ὄνομος), it's because those words come from Aeolic dialect version of ὄνομος, which had upsilon: ὄνυμος. See here.


----------



## blabla31

Hi everyone. There is a little confusion. I am talking of HETERONOMY in linguistic term. the translation in italian is ETERONIMIA. Finally I found a solution. "Relazione che sussiste tra termini che hanno degli elementi comuni per quanto riguarda il significato però hanno origine etimologica completamente diversa. Ad esempio, "fratello, sorella".


----------



## brian

Those cannot be the same terms.

_heteron*o*my = eteron*o*mia_
_*heteron*y*my_ = _eteron*i*mia_

As far as I know, _heteronymy_ does not exist as a word. It would probably be something like _heteronymity_ (by analogy with _anonymity_).

Sei sicuro che la parola italiana non sia _eteron*o*mia_?


----------



## winegrower

brian8733 said:


> Ok... let's not confuse two different terms:
> 
> 1) *heteronym (-onymous)* : from Gk. ἕτερος (_héteros_, "other, another") + *ὄνομος* (_ónomos_, "name") = "of another *name*"; it's related to words like _synonym _and _antonym_.*
> 
> 2) *heteronomy (-nomous)* : ἕτερος (_héteros_, "other, another") + *νόμος* (_nómos_, "custom, law") = "of another *custom/law*"; it's related to words like _autonomy_ (in politics).


 
Just pay attention to what Brian (to whose knowledge of Classic Greek I humbly bow) is telling here. It is not auton*y*mous/eteron*y*mous=of the same/different name. 
It is auton*o*mous/eteron*o*mous=independent/dependent
If you watch my post, I wrote the words with an o and not with a y.
I am trying to figure out the days-months thing but still don't understand it!
PS. the translation in Italian should be *eteronomia.*


----------



## Wilma_Sweden

The linguistic term is heteronymy, but there are different definitions.

In lexical semantics, days of the week or months of the year cannot be synonymous with each other, and they have no antonyms either - which of the remaining 11 months would be the antonym of January? - and yet they share a distinct common feature. That's why they're called heteronyms - they are heteronymous with each other within their own group, i.e. day names with each other and month names with each other. I think numerals would also be heteronymous with each other. I don't know if they have any natural hyperonyms or hyponyms (see Sokol's post), but that type of classification is vertical, while the heteronymy described deals with these words' relation to each other - they are clearly related, neither of them mean the same as the others, but they are not opposites and they are not gradable antonyms either.

Another definition of heteronymy is the case of two words that are spelled the same but have different pronunciation and meaning, like desert (sandy place) and desert (abandon). But that's an aside and not what the OP was asking about.

/Wilma


----------



## brian

Okay, so we all agree that the two words given two us, one in English (_heteron*o*my_) and one in Italian (_eteron*i*mia_), refer to two different concepts.

I originally thought that we were talking about _heteron*o*my/eteron*o*mia_ (and I think winegrower agreed with me), while Wilma and sokol think we are talking about _heteron*y*my/eteron*i*mia_.

Have I got that right?

Now, going back to the original question about days of the week/months of the year:



> The relationship between the days of the week and the months of the year is called *incompatibility* or *heteronomy*, and involves more than two members of a category, which share one or more meaning elements and are mutually exclusive".


and taking into consideration sokol's great examples and Wilma's excellent explanation--and blabla's insistence that the Italian word definitely is _eteron*i*mia_ --I now agree with them that the intended word/concept must be _heteron*y*my_, which corresponds to (1) in my post #7:



			
				brian8733 said:
			
		

> 1) *heteronym (-onymous)* : from Gk. ἕτερος (_héteros_, "other, another") + *ὄνομος* (_ónomos_, "name") = "of another *name*"; it's related to words like _synonym _and _antonym_.



The days/months thing makes perfect sense to me now.


----------



## sokol

brian8733 said:


> So it seems to me we are talking about (2), not (1). Yet sokol, your post talks about (1).


Oh!

You're right  I completely misread the thread title. The brain sees what it wants to see, so my post above of course is irrelevant now.


----------



## brian

On the contrary, it's the title that's wrong, and it's you who were right.  (That was my point in post #12.)

The title, i.e. the concept in question, should be _heteron*y*my_.


----------



## sokol

brian8733 said:


> The title, i.e. the concept in question, should be _heteron*y*my_.


You should have said so in the first place.  (Oh, I should have read your post more carefully. )


----------

