Misunderstanding Hyponymy

Martin & Rose (2007: 89)

Relations of class to member are given various names in English, depending on the field, e.g. a class of words, a make of car, a breed of dogs. Common examples include class, kind, type, category, sort, variety, genre, style, form, make, breed, species, order, family, grade, brand, caste. These can be used cohesively between messages, e.g. Like my new car? Yes, what make is it? Technically, class-member relations are known as hyponymy (hypo- from Greek ‘under’).

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Here Martin & Rose first claim that terms like class, make, breed etc. are names of hyponymic relations, and immediately contradict this by misinterpreting them as the superordinate terms in hyponymic relations ('car-make'); cf genuine hyponymic relations such as verb-word, Bentley-car, kelpie-dog.

To be clear, such terms are all synonyms for 'variety', which is the function they serve as extended Numerative in nominal groups such as a class of words, a make of car, a breed of dogs; Halliday & Matthiessen (2014: 395):

 

Moreover, in the authors' terms, the concern here is meant to be the taxonomic relation of hyponymy, as a feature within the experiential discourse semantic system of IDEATION.  Instead, however, the authors unwittingly confuse two distinct metafunctional systems of lexicogrammar: nominal group (experiential) and lexical cohesion (textual).