The word "antonymy" was coined by C. J. Smith as an opposite of "synonymy"

The word “antonymy” was coined by C. J. Smith as an opposite of “synonymy”. Since 1867, lots of efforts have been taken to define “antonymy”, but the problem is that the definition of antonymy tends to illustration rather than description. For example, if we would like to tell others what antonymy is, to give some examples like old/young, tall/short, open/close, bad/good, etc. will be more effective than to give a definition. However, finding a definition which could account for every example of antonymy is difficult, even problematic. Lyons (1977) defines “antonym” as the words which are opposite in meaning and “antonymy” as the oppositeness between words. For example, “buy” and “sell” is a pair of antonyms and the relation between these two words is termed as antonymy. Leech (1981) puts forward the definition of antonym and antonymy in Semantics that the opposite meaning relation between the words is antonymy and word of opposite meaning is antonym. And a famous Chinese linguist Hu Zhuanglin (2001, p.164) simply says “antonymy is the name for oppositeness relation”. Traditional definitions of antonymy only concentrate on the oppositeness of meaning. Some traditional definitions are as follows: word of opposite meaning; (Leech, 1981) word of opposite sense; (Pyles & Algeo, 1970) words that are opposite. (Watson, 1976) These definitions are only rough ideas and over ambiguous. First, they don’t explain the ways of oppositeness very concretely. The antonym pairs like hot/cold, dead/alive and lend/borrow differ from each other in the way of oppositeness. The pair hot/cold belongs to the gradable antonyms; the pair dead/alive belongs to the complementary antonyms; and the pair lend/borrow belongs to the relational antonyms. Second, these definitions focus more on the discrepancy of the antonyms but they ignore the similarity of the grammar and usage of each of the antonym pairs. Just look at another three pairs, heat/cold, single/married, and beauty/ugly. Although either of them is opposite in meaning, they could not be regarded as antonyms in that they are not the same in grammatical units. Furthermore, people use the antonyms most of ISSN 1798-4769 Journal of Language Teaching and Research,
the time just for the effect of contrast. For instance, the juxtaposition of spring and winter can constantly be found in the English literature, as is presented in Ode to the West Wind, “If winter comes, can spring be far behind?” Taking the above factors into consideration, Lyons classifies opposition into three categories: antonymy, complementarity and converseness in Semantics (1977) and Introduction to Theoretical Linguistics (1968). Lyons only regards words that are gradable and opposite in meaning as antonyms. Cruse (1986) thinks the same way in his Lexical Semantics. So the term “antonym” only refers to the set of gradable opposites, which are mostly adjectives, for gradable antonyms reflect one distinguishing semantic feature: polar oppositeness. However, in our daily life, words like male/female, dead/alive, husband/wife are also considered as antonym pairs, for these words are also opposite in meaning. Therefore, the other two categories, complementarity and converseness, are included in the field of antonymy only in a very broad sense. In general, there are two criteria in defining antonymy: semantic and lexical. We explain elaborately the antonymy being semantic above, and yet not all semantically opposed words are antonyms. Cruse (1986) exemplifies this with the words tubby and emaciated. Almost all established antonyms have synonyms which could not constitute the antonym pairs, for example, the antonym pair of heavy and light is better than weighty and insubstantial; antonym pair of fast and slow is better opposites rather than speedy and sluggish; antonym pair of happy and sad is more reasonable than ecstatic and miserable. Although both of the antonymy and synonymy link words together in the lexicon, Gross et al. (1988) argue that antonymy and synonymy are different. They say while synonymy is “a relation between lexical concepts”, antonymy is “a relation between words, not concepts”. Justeson and Katz (1991) also refer to antonymy as a lexical relation, “specific to words rather than concepts”. As a matter of fact, the definition of antonymy must be lexical as well as semantic. Antonyms need to have “oppositeness of meaning”, but they also need to have a strong, well-established lexical relationship with one another.(Jackson, 1988) Lexicographer Egan (1968) makes a rather satisfying definition of “antonymy” based on her understanding of the nature of the antonymy: “An antonym is a word so opposed in meaning to another word; it’s equal in breadth or range of application, that is, negates or nullifies every single one of its implications”. This definition shows clearly what makes two words be antonyms. The antonym pairs are equal in breadth or range of application but opposed in meaning. And the words which contrast in meaning may not be antonyms because they may be different in their breadth or range of application. Therefore, we can draw a conclusion that Egan’s definition of antonymy may be fitter or easier to be employed into the actual cases than the theories and definitions of antonymy that have been referred to above. B. The Classification of Antonymy There are generally three kinds of sense relations, that is, sameness relation, oppositeness relation and inclusiveness relation. Antonymy is the name for oppositeness relation. And there are three main types of antonymy, that is, gradable antonymy, complementary antonymy, and converse antonymy. (1) Gradable Antonymy Gradable antonymy is the commonest type of antonymy. The antonym pairs like hot/cold, big/small and tall/short all belong to the gradable antonyms. We can find that they are mainly adjectives. The gradable antonymy has three characteristics: first, as the name suggests, they are gradable, that is, the members of a pair differ in terms of degree; second, antonyms of this kind are graded against different norms; third, one member of a pair, usually the term for the higher degree, serves as the cover term. As for the first characteristic, it also means that if you deny one thing, you do not necessarily assert the other. And the antonym pairs may have the comparative and superlative degrees. For example, “good” and “bad”, both of these two words have the comparative and superlative degrees: “better”/“best” and “worse”/“worst”. Therefore, being not good is not necessarily bad; and being not bad is not necessarily good. Between “good” and “bad”, we can find a degree that is “so-so”. Look at other examples, between the two extremes of the size “big” and “small”, there is a degree that is “medium”; between the two extremes of the temperature “hot” and “cold”, there are degrees that are “warm” and “cool”. From the information referred to above, we can see that the gradable antonyms differ in terms of degree. Look at the second characteristic, it means that there is no absolute criterion by which we tell an object is “big” and another is “small”. The criterion is relative but not absolute. As we all know, a small car is always bigger than a big apple. This is why the antonyms of this kind are graded based on different norms. As for the third characteristic, one of the antonym pairs is the cover term, which is known as “unmarked”. “Unmarked” is used more widely than “marked”. We may ask “how old are you” or “how tall is she” instead of “how young are you” or “how short is she”. In that, “old” and “tall” are cover terms, “unmarked”; and “young” and “short” are marked. The distinction between “unmarked” and “marked” reflect the potential value system that the speech community holds. People want to be tall rather than short. Complementary Antonymy Antonyms like awake/asleep, married/single, pass/fail, alive/dead and male/female are of this type. Complementary antonyms also have three characteristics: first, they divide up the whole of a semantic field completely; second, the norm in this type is absolute; third, there is no cover term for the two members of a pair. As for the first characteristic, unlike the gradable antonyms, the complementary antonyms share a semantic field. But between the two complementary antonyms, there is no intermediate ground pair of complementary antonym is that between them they exhaustively divide some conceptual domain into two mutually exclusive compartments, so that what does not fall into one of the compartments must necessarily fall into the other. The members of the antonym pairs of this kind is complementary to each other. For instance, “He is more female than male”. Actually, he is a male but not female. He is a male but he is closer to the state of being female. The denial of male is the assertion of female and the assertion of female is the denial of male. They don’t have the comparative and superlative degrees. And they don’t have the intermediate degree between these two words of an antonym pair. The second characteristic is that the norm in this type of antonymy is absolute, that is, the norm is the same when it is used for all the things it is applicable to. The criteria to tell male from female is the same when we refer to the human beings and the animals. And the death of human beings is the same as that of any animal. As for the third characteristic, in the complementary antonymy, there is no cover term or covered term. We can not ask somebody’s sex like age. It means we cannot say “how boy/male is it” like “how old are you”. We should ask “Is it a boy or a girl”. That’s a normal question. (3) Converse Antonymy The antonym pairs like husband/wife, doctor/patient, teacher/student, buy/sell, above/below and employer/employee are all converse antonymy. They show a reversal relationship. A is B’s husband means B is A’s wife. A is B’s doctor means B is A’s patient. A is B’s teacher means B is A’s student. It is also known as relational opposites. Egan (1968) describe these antonym pairs as pairs of words which include such a relationship that one of them cannot be used without suggesting the other. Therefore we can see that there is a huge difference between converse antonymy and the other two subtypes of antonymy, that is, one should presupposes the other as for the two members that involved in an antonym pair. If there is a buyer, then there must be a seller. We cannot say he is a husband, we must say he is whose husband, because one can not be a husband if he has no wife. Just like the parent who can not be a parent if he has no child. In this relationship, one can not talk about A without B. However, there is something special to the “child”. Child and parent is an antonym pair if the child means the parent’s son or daughter. But when it refers to somebody under the age of eighteen, child is the antonym of adult. It is the same as the word “teacher”. Teacher is a single word when it refers to an occupation. Only when it means one is a teacher only to his student, can this word constitute an antonym pair with “student”. Antonymy helps achieve textual cohesion. It reveals the opposition and the unity of objects in languages. Employing antonyms in English texts correctly reveals the oppositeness of objects and produces a strong sense of comparison. Therefore, writers are fond of and good at employing antonyms in their literature works, because it makes the works artistically charming and powerfully convincing. A. Antonymy Used in Poetry Antonyms are widely used in poetry. English poet Alfred Tennyson had the famous lines in his Ulysses “Though much is taken, much abides; and though/ We are not now that strength which in the old days/ Moved earth and heaven; that which we are, we are;/ One equal-temper of heroic hearts,/ Made weak by time and fate, but strong in will/ To strive, to seek, to find, and not to yield.” How encouraging it is! Even a man in despair can get the power from the lines. And what makes the lines memorable and powerful is the use of antonyms. In Romeo and Juliet, Romeo has the poem, “O loving hate,/ O anything, or nothing first created!/ O heavy lightness, serious vanity,/ Misshapen chaos of well-seeming forms,/ Feather of lead, bright smoke, cold fire, sick health,/ Still-waking sleep, that is not what it is!” B. Antonymy Used in Dramas Antonymy is also widely used in dramas. It can be seen obviously from the works of William Shakespeare. In Romeo and Juliet “My only love sprung from my only hate. Too early seen unknown, and known too late. Prodigious birth of love it is to me, that I must love a loathed” In the quotation, four antonym pairs are there and they constitute the well known figures of speech in English, oxymoron and paradox. When we read the words at first, we may think them very ridiculous, illogical and raving. However, when we explore the plot of the drams, we can find that the drama uses these antonym pairs and corresponding figures of speech to depict the contradictory mind of Juliet on the occasion. Juliet says this in Act 1 Scene 5 when she finds out who Romeo is. She’s expressing a bunch of information and emotion all at once here—she’s fallen in love with Romeo, but she’s upset that he is a member of the rival family. She saw him first (too early) and fell for him before she found out who he was (too late). Love now seems very strange to her, that she can love someone she’s supposed to hate. Antonyms for the most of time are used to make irony and oxymoron. In The Tragedy of Julius Caesar, Caesar states, “I thank you for your pains and courtesy.” Different listeners interpret it differently. Caesar meant one thing; to the audience, who knows that Caesar will soon be killed, the statement means something entirely different. Oxymoron is formed whenever two words that are contrary in normal usage are combined together. (Watson, 2006, p.29)The master of the oxymoron was William Shakespeare. In the Act 5 Scene 1 of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Theseus remarks about the choices for the entertainment in the evening: “A tedious brief scene of young Pyramus

his love Thisby; very tragical mirth./ Merry and tragical? tedious and brief?/ That is hot ice and wondrous strange snow. How shall we find the concord of this discord? ” C. Antonymy Used in Novels In the process of writing novels, numerous novelists are very good at employing antonyms. The following is excerpted from A Tale of Two Cities written by Charles Dickens. “It was the best times, it was the worst times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of the foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of light, it was the season of darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we has nothing before us.” It uses six pairs of antonyms to depict the complicate and dangerous atmosphere before the French revolution. These six antonym pairs are parallel and overwhelming. In Maxwell Anderson’s Lost in the Stars, you will read “That you are all lost here, black and white, rich and poor, the fools and the wise!” In O. Henry’s The Duel, you will read “I despise its very vastness and power. It has the poorest millionaires, the littlest great men, the haughtiest beggars, the plainest beauties, the lowest skyscrapers, the dolefulest pleasures of any town I ever saw.” In T. Dreiser’s Sister Carrie you will read “there was an audible stillness, in which the common voice sounded strange.” Every famous novelist without exception has a good master of antonyms. D. Antonymy Used in Speeches When antonymy is used in a speech, a clear-cut stand and a clear point of view are easily made. The language has stronger rhythm and helps being persuasive. As a result, many people employ antonymy in their speeches to state their opinions, justify their positions and influence the public opinion. This can be best seen from the speeches of American presidents. Observing Barack Obama’s first victory speech in 2008, we are easy to read following lines: “It's the answer spoken by young and old, rich and poor, Democrat and Republican, black, white, Latino, Asian, Native American, gay, straight, disabled and not disabled — Americans who sent a message to the world that we have never been a collection of red states and blue states; we are, and always will be, the United States of America.”… “In this country, we rise or fall as one nation — as one people.”… “our stories are singular, but our destiny is shared, and a new dawn of American leadership is at hand. To those who would tear this world down: We will defeat you. To those who seek peace and security: We support you.”… “And tonight, I think about all that she's seen throughout her century in America — the heartache and the hope; the struggle and the progress”… “because after 106 years in America, through the best of times and the darkest of hours, she knows how America can change. Yes, we can.” Abraham Lincoln once in his Address at Gettyburg had “The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, for above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. ”. The effect achieved by the use of these antonyms is rather striking. With the beautiful language forms with the use of antonymy the persuasive power of the speakers are strengthened greatly and the audience are more likely to be convinced to a greater extent. Examples are many, not only in presidential speeches, like Barack Obama, Abraham Lincoln. Martin Luther King had “one hundred years later, the Negro lives on a lonely island of a poverty in the midst of vast ocean of material prosperity.” E. Antonymy Used in Proverbs Proverb is a form of language with the presentation of each figure of speech, which is a fixed short verse naturally coming from the usual use of some composition of the language. Proverb is simple; meanwhile, it entertains a thought deeply. When antonyms are used in proverbs, the rhetorical effect of phonological harmony, formal beauty and conciseness are achieved. Several examples are given as follows. “More haste, less speed.” “Easy come, easy go.” “Art is long, life is short.” “An idle youth, a needy age.” “Small sorrows speak; great sorrows are silent.” Very famous people are more skilful of using antonymy in proverbs. George Herbert has “Love makes all hard hearts gentle”. And George Eliot has “It is surely better to pardon too much than to condemn too much”. All these examples listed above are neat in the construction of the sentences. No matter visually or phonologically, a kind of beauty of harmony can be sensed, which helps convey profound messages.
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Antonyms (Greek anti - opposite, onyma - name) are words belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style and having opposite denotative meanings. For example: light - dark; happiness - sorrow; up - down. Antonyms are usually believed to appear in pairs. Yet, this is not true in reality. For instance, the adjective cold may be said to have warm for its second antonym, and the noun sorrow may be very well contrasted with gaiety. However, polysemantic word may have an antonym or several antonyms for each of its meanings. So, the adjective dull has the antonym interesting, amusing, entertaining and active for its meaning of deficient in interest, and clever, bright, capable for its meaning of deficient in intellect and active for its meaning of deficient in activity. Antonyms are not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives, which seems to be natural, because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted. For example: high- low, strong - weak, wide - narrow, friendly - hostile. Verbs take the second place, so far as antonym is concerned. For example: to lose - to find, to live - to die, to open - to close. Nouns are not rich in antonyms. For example: good - evil, love - hatred. Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups: a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly - coldly, loudly - softly; This gives up rights to speak about morphological classification of antonyms. 1.2 Morphological Classification of Antonyms have traditionally been defined as words of opposite meaning. This definition, however, is not sufficiently accurate as it only shifts the problem to the question of what words may be regarded as words of opposite meaning. Therefore the latest linguistic investigations emphasize, that antonyms are similar as words belonging to the same part of speech and the same semantic field, having the same grammatical meaning and functions, as well as similar collocations. According to their morphological structure antonyms may be classified into: · root antonyms (having different roots): to love - to hate, long - short, day - night; · derivational antonyms (having the same roots but different derivational affixes): regular - irregular, fruitful - fruitless. Absolute or Root Antonyms So, V.N. Comissarov in his dictionary of antonyms classified them into two groups: absolute or root antonyms and derivational antonyms. Absolute antonyms have different roots and derivational antonyms have the same roots but different affixes. We can find in Collins Cobuild dictionary such definition: The antonym of word is another word which means the opposite. There is another term, which is quit interesting to our opinion: Words that are antonymous are opposite in meaning. Such, the pair of words should be called antonymous, but one of them, which is not always just one, has a name antonym. Kinds and examples of root antonyms are observed in the second part of the Course Paper. But in the theoretical part we want to refer to a very interesting source. In dealing with antonymic oppositions it may be helpful to treat antonyms in terms of marked and unmarked members. The unmarked member can be more widely used and very often can include the referents of the marked member but not vice versa. This proves that their meanings have some components in common. In the antonymic pair `old - young the unmarked member is old. We've found an interesting example on one of studied sources: It is possible to ask: How old is the girl?, without implying that she is no longer young. Some authors, J.Lyons among them, suggest a different terminology. They distinguish antonyms proper and complementary antonyms. The chief characteristic feature of antonyms proper is that they are regularly gradable. Antonyms proper, therefore, represent contrary notions. Grading is based on the operation of comparison. One can compare the intensity of feeling as in love -- attachment -- liking -- indifference -- antipathy -- hate. Whenever a sentence contains an antonym or an antonymic pair, it implicitly or explicitly contains comparison. Thus, discussing the group of root antonyms, we should to speak about complementary antonyms and contrary notions, a semantic classification of antonyms. 1.2.1 Derivational Antonyms Derivetional antonyms are more difficult to study. As we mentioned above, derivational antonyms have the same roots but different affixes. Negative prefixes for antonyms are un-, dis-, non-, but sometimes they are formed by means of suffixes -ful and -less. The number of antonyms with the suffixes -ful and -less is not very large, e.g. "successful" -"unsuccessful", "selfless" - "selfish". The same is true about antonyms with negative prefixes, e.g. "to man" is not an antonym of the word "to unman", "to disappoint" is not an antonym of the word "to appoint". The difference between derivational and root antonyms is not only in their structure, but in semantics as well. Group of derivational antonyms express contradictory notions, one of them excludes the other, e.g. "active"- "inactive". Absolute antonyms express contrary notions. If some notions can be arranged in a group of more than two members, the most distant members of the group will be absolute antonyms, e.g. "ugly", "plain", "good-looking", "pretty", "beautiful", the antonyms are "ugly" and "beautiful". Leonard Lipka in the book Outline of English Lexicology defines types of oppositeness, which we study in the next chapter of this Course Paper. Thus, we should to study now some characteristics of Semantic Classification of Antonyms. 1.3 Semantic Classification of Antonyms Lipka is one of the linguists, who describes different types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into three types: a) complementary, e.g. male -female, married -single, b) antonyms, e.g. good -bad, c) converseness, e.g. to buy - to sell. He does that in the following way. The denial of the one implies, the assertion of the other, and vice versa. John is not married implies that John is single. The type of oppositeness is based on yes/no decision. This concerns pairs of lexical units. Antonyms are the second class of oppositeness. It is distinguished from complimentarity by being based on different logical relationships. For pairs of antonyms like good - bad, big - small only the second one of the above mentioned relations of implication holds. The assertion containing one member implies the negation of the other, but not vice versa. John is good implies that John is not bad, but John is not good does not imply that John is bad. The negation of one term does not necessarily implies the assertion of the other. Converseness is mirror-image relations or functions, e.g. husband - wife, pupil - teacher, precede - follow, above - below, before - after etc. L. Lipka also describes the type which is called as: · directional opposition, ex. up - down; · consiquence opposition, ex. learn - know; · antipodal opposition, ex. North - South, East - West, ( it is based on contrary motion, in opposite directions.) · oppositions, which involve motion in different directions, ex. come - go, arrive -depart. Lipka also points out non-binary contrast or many-member lexical sets. Here he points out serially ordered sets, such as: · scales, ex. hot- warm, cool - cold ; · colour words, ex. black, grey, white ; · ranks, ex. marshal, general, colonel, major, captain etc.; · gradable examination marks, ex. excellent, good, average, fair, poor; · units of time, ex. spring, summer, autumn, winter . [80] Thus, let's investigate the complementary, proper antonyms, and converseness differences in details. 1.3.1 Antonyms Proper Some authors, J.Lyons among them, suggest a different terminology. They distinguish antonyms proper and complementary antonyms. The chief characteristic feature of antonyms proper is that they are regularly gradable. This kind of antonyms proper represents contrary notions. They say, that grading is based on the operation of comparison. The group of words, which name intensity of feeling, ex. love -- attachment -- liking -- indifference -- antipathy -- hate, can be compared. Whenever a sentence contains an antonym or an antonymic pair, it contains comparison. J. Lyons discusses an interesting example of antonyms also dealing with elephants: A small elephant is a large animal. The size-norm for elephants is not the same as that for all animals in general: the elephant which is small in comparison with other elephants may be big in comparison with animals as a class. This example may also serve to show the difference and parallelism between antonyms proper and complementarity (expressing contradictory notions). The semantic polarity in antonyms proper is relative, the opposition is gradual, it may embrace several elements characterized by different degrees of the same property. The comparison they imply is clear from the context. Large and little denote polar degrees of the same notion. The same referent which may be small as an elephant is a comparatively big animal, but it cannot be male as an elephant and female as an animal: a male elephant is a male animal. Having noted the difference between complementary antonyms and antonyms proper, we must also take into consideration that they have much in common so that in a wider sense both groups are taken as antonyms. 1.3.2 Complementaries J.Lyons among also describes complementaries. Like other antonyms they are regularly contrasted in speech (ex. male- female), and the elements of a complementary pair have similar distribution. According to him, the assertion of a sentence containing an antonymous or complementary term implies the denial of a corresponding sentence containing the other antonym or complementary: The poem is good > The poem is not bad (good : : bad -- antonyms proper) This is prose > This is not poetry (prose : : poetry -- complementaries) As to the difference in negation it is optional with antonyms proper: by saying that the poem is not good the speaker does not always mean that it is positively bad. Though more often we are inclined to take into consideration only the opposite ends of the scale and by saying that something is not bad we even, using litotes, say it is good. So complementaries are a subset of antonyms taken in a wider sense. The complementary opposite, sometimes is known as the contradictory. Like the gradable adjectives, the complementary adjectives share a semantic dimension, but it is a dimension which has no middle values. As Cruse describes it: The essence of a pair of complementaries is that between them they exhaustively divide some conceptual domain into two mutually exclusive compartments, so that what does not fall into one of the compartments must necessarily fall into the other". It is sometimes hard to decide whether a pair of opposites belongs in the set of gradable adjectives or in the set of complementaries. But, as Cruse says, in addition to adjectives, verbs such as pass - fail and obey - disobey, nouns such as day - night, prepositions such as in - out, and adverbs such as backwards - forwards are also sometimes considered examples of complementaries. Although by definition, complementaries are pairs which allow no logical middle term, in actual use, complementaries are sometimes used like gradable adjectives; for example, we can say that something is almost true, or that someone is barely alive. However, as Lyons (1977) points out, in these cases it may be the "secondary implications" of the words that are being graded rather than the main sense. That is, someone who is barely alive is actually entirely alive, but s/he is not as lively or energetic as most people are. Directional opposites are another type of opposite, described in Lyons (1977) and in greater detail in Cruse (1986). These are generally adverbs or prepositions and include pairs such as up - down, in - out, and clockwise - anticlockwise. Reersive opposites, described in Lehrer and Lehrer (1982) and Egan (1968), are yet another type of opposite, Egan describes reversive opposites in this way: These comprise adjectives or adverbs which signify a quality or verbs or nouns which signify an act or state that reverse or undo the quality, act, or state of the other. Although they are neither contradictory nor contrary terms, they present a clear opposition. This class contains many verbs, for example, tie - untie, marry - divorce, enter - leave, appear - disappear. Cruse and Lyons consider the reversive verbs to be a subtype of directional opposites, because they all describe activities which result in an object undergoing a change from one state to another. Thus Cruse says the opposition seen in pairs of reversive verbs is similar to the kind of opposition in pairs of directional prepositions such as to - from. 1.3.3 Converives Relational opposites is the term given by Cruse also called relative terms according to Egan and conversive terms difined by Lyons, include pairs such as above - below, predecessor - successor, parent - child and teacher - student. Egan describes these as pairs of words which indicate such a relationship that one of them cannot be used without suggesting the other. Cruse considers this class to also be a subclass of the directional opposites. He says that these pairs "express a relationship between two entities by specifying the direction of one relative to the other along some axis." In examples such as above - below, this axis is spatial, but other examples (e.g. ancestor - descendant) involve "an analogical or metaphorical extension of spatial dimensions". Lyons points out that many opposites of this type involve social roles (teacher - student, doctor - patient) or kinship relations (father - mother), and these types of reciprocal relations have been wll documented in many languages in the anthropological literature. Conversives (or relational opposites) as F.R. Palmer calls them denote one and the same referent or situation as viewed from different points of view, with a reversal of the order of participants and their roles. The interchangeability and contextual behaviour are specific. The relation is closely connected with grammar, namely with grammatical contrast of active and passive. The substitution of a conversive does not change the meaning of a sentence if it is combined with appropriate regular morphological and syntactical changes and selection of appropriate prepositions, ex. He gave her flowers. She received flowers from him. = She was given flowers by him. An important point setting them apart is that conversive relations are possible within the semantic structure of one and the same word. M.V. Nikitin mentions such verbs as wear, sell, tire, smell, etc. and such adjectives as glad, sad, dubious, lucky and others. It should be noted that sell in this case is not only the conversive of buy, it means be sold, find buyers. The same contrast of active and passive sense is observed in adjectives: sad saddening and saddened, dubious and doubtful mean feeling doubt and inspiring doubt. So, semantically antonyms can be classified as gradable antonyms (describing something, which can be measured and compared with something else), complementary antonyms (which are matter of being either one thing or another), and converse antonyms (these antonyms always depend on each other). Morphological classification of antonyms includes two types of antonyms: · Absolute or Root Antonyms (with root polarity), and · Derivational antonyms (which has morphems with polar meanings). Taking into account the main aims of these investigation, all these points of scientific view should be worked out and analyzed in the next part of the Course Paper. Lexico-Semantic meaning of words distinguishes three essential types of lexical meaning of words: nominative meaning determined by reality, phraseologically bound meaning of words depending on the peculiarities of their usage in a given language, and syntactically conditioned meanings of words are those which change with the change of the environment.the structure of lexical meaning of a word we distinguish two main components: denotative and connotative. Polysemantic word may have an antonym or several antonyms for each of its meanings. Antonyms are not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Antonyms are similar as words belonging to the same part of speech and the same semantic field, having the same grammatical meaning and functions, as well as similar collocations. According to their morphological structure antonyms may be classified into: root antonyms and derivational antonyms (having the same roots but different derivational affixes).



Part 2. Textual Presentation of Antonyms in Modern English .1 Textual Presentation of Antonyms in Modern English 's time to study examples of antonyms in detail. Arnold handles a problem of using of antonyms in a literary as means of giving emphasise to some contrast. Antonyms create emotional tension as in the following lines from Romeo and Juliet (Act I, Scene V): My only love sprang from my only hate Too early seen unknown, and known too late! The opposition is obvious: each component of these pairs means the opposite of the other. Some other examples: 1. If you've obeyed all the rules good and bad, and you still come out at the dirty end ... then I say the rules are no good (M. Wilson). 2. He was alive, not dead (Shaw). 3. You will see if you were right or wrong (Cronin) 4. The whole was big, oneself was little (Galsworthy)... Another important example is the possibility of substitution and identical lexical valency [60]. This possibility of identical contexts is very clearly seen in the following lines: 1. There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, That it hardly becomes any of us To talk about the rest of us (Hock). As for the same antonymic pair, they reveal nearly identical spheres of collocation. Examples: the adjective hot in its figurative meaning of angry and excited is chiefly combined with names of unpleasant emotions: anger, resentment, scorn, etc. Its antonym cold occurs with the same words. The example with Elephant mentioned in the theoretical part, gives us an interesting notice such words as young - old; big - small; good - bad do not refer to independent absolute qualities but to some-implicit norm, they are relative. The Elephant When people call this beast to mind, They marvel more and more At such a little tail behind, So large a trunk before. The tail of an elephant is little only in comparison with his trunk and the rest of his body. For a mouse it would have been quite big. J. Lyons discusses an interesting example of antonyms also dealing with elephants: A small elephant is a large animal. The implicit size-norm for elephants is not the same as that for all animals in general: the elephant which is small in comparison with other elephants may be big in comparison with animals as a class. Almost every word can have one or more synonyms. Comparatively few have antonyms. This type of opposition is especially characteristic of qualitative adjectives. E. g. in W. Shakespeare's Sonnet LXXVI": For as the sun is daily new and old, So is my love still telling what is told. It is also manifest in words derived from qualitative adjectives, e. g. gladly - sadly; gladness - sadness. Irrespective of the part of speech, they are mostly words connected with feelings or state: triumph - disaster; hope - despair. Antonymic pairs, also irrespective of part of speech, concern direction (hither and thither) (L.A. Novikov calls these vectorial antonyms"), and position in space and time (far and near). Nothing so difficult as a beginning, In poetry, unless perhaps the end (Byron). There are also day - night, late - early, over - under. 2.1.1 Root Antonyms in language As we said in the first part, antonyms and conversives reflect polarity. We'll try to show that using antonyms. We've used So, all antonyms can be divided into two big groups: root antonyms and derivational. First let us found a group of root antonyms. These are words, roots of which have opposite meanings. · New - old The new town of Whitney Clay had swallowed up the old village. New - not existing before; introduced, made, invented, etc. recently or for the first time. Old - having been in existence or use for a long time. · We can see that these pairs of words are pairs of antonyms, whereas the particle not is an element of formation of antonyms. We can find it using chain of meanings if the words. Distant - near It may be near, it may be distant; while the road lasts nothing turns me. · The meanings of these words enclose opposite semes, such as distant - near= far away - short, therefore they are antonyms. Our next examples illustrate pair of words, which are antonymous pairs: Guilty - innocent So the law assumed there must be one guilty party, and one innocent party who has been wronged by desertion of the matrimonial bed. · Loathe - love · If a man and woman sinned, let them go for into the desert to love or loathe each other there. Giant - pigmy So you think your friend in the city will be hard upon me, if i fail a payment? - says the trooper, looking down upon him like a giant. My dear friend, I am afraid he will, - returns the old man looking up at him like a pigmy. 2.1.2 Derivational antonyms in language The second group of antonyms (derivations) can be made with: un -, in -; (il -; im -; ir -;); dis -, and -less. Some examples of derivationals: · Approve - disapprove Who am I to approve or disapprove? · Tied - untied People get tied up, and sometimes they stay tied - because they want to stay or because they haven't the will power to break or others become untied and make a new start. · Engage - disengage How soon will you be disengaged? I didn't say you i was engaged. · Just - unjust The A.F. of L. port leaders, as loyal servitors of capitalism, unquestionable support all wars, just or unjust, declared by the capitalist class and its government. · Audible - inaudible Little audible links, they are chaining together great inaudible feelings and purposes. · Concerned - unconcerned It concerned her in some way, but she herself was unconcerned, and she slid without effort into the position of mistress of the farm. So, it's easy to find these examples in Modern English. Their meanings are quite clever and understandable. 2.2 Differences of meaning of antonyms , the meanings can sometimes be different. Let us to analyze the verb agree. This verb has five meanings, but only three of them have antonyms. Agree - v. 1.to say yes, ex: I asked for a pay rise and she agreed. - refuse; 2.to have a similar opinion to somebody, ex: I agree with his analysis of the situation. - disagree; 3.to be consisted with something; to match, ex: You account of the affair doesn't agree with hers. - disagree. Order - n. The word has fourteen meanings, but only two of them have antonyms: 1.the state that exists when people obey the laws, rules or authority, ex: The police are trying to restore public order. - disorder; 2.the state of being carefully and neatly arranged, ex: Get your ideas into some kind of order before beginning to write. - disorder. Black - adj. The word has nine meanings, but only three of them have antonyms: 1.of the very darkest colour, ex: A big black cloud appeared. - white. 2.without milk, ex: Two black coffees, please. - white. 3.of a race that has dark skin, ex: Many black people emigrated to Britain it the 1950s. - white. Active - adj. The word has six meanings, but only two of them have antonyms: 1.doing things; lively, ex: She takes an active part in local politics.; -inactive.; 2.of the form of a verb whose subject is the person or thing that performs the action (grammar), as in He was driving the car and the children have eaten the cake. - passive. Down - adv. The word has nine meanings, but only four of them have antonyms: 1.from the upright position to a lower level, ex: He bent down to pick up his gloves.- up.; 2.indicating a lower place or state, ex: The bread is on the third shelf down. - up.; 3.to be read from top to bottom, not from side to side, ex: I can't do 3 down. - across.; 4.away from a university (Brit), ex: going down at the end of the year. - up. 1. in defence or support of somebody/something, ex: I'm all for pubs staying open all day. - against. 2.3 Using antonyms pair in proverbs and sayings main field of use pairs of antonyms is proverbs and sayings. Proverbs are phenomenon of thout, language, art. The main sense of proverbs and sayings is not the information given but artistic pattern, meaning content. Some examples: The time passes away but sayings remain. After a storm comes fair weather, after sorrow comes joy. An hour in the morning is worth two in the evening. There'd be no good fortune if misfortune hadn't helped. Never put off till tomorrow what you can do today. Breaking is not making. Knowledge is light, ignorance is darkness. You started speaking with delight and finished with a sorry sight! Native dogs are fighting here, foreign ones should not interfere. Greet him according to the clothes, take leave according to what he knows.[59] Thus, based on the examples given above , we can say that antonyms are resource of a category opposition. We have found a confirmation that antonyms can be expressed: · as words with different roots; · as words, which are formed with negative prefixes. Almost every word can have one or more synonyms. Comparatively few have antonyms. The main field of use pairs of antonyms is proverbs and sayings. The main sense of proverbs and sayings is not the information given but artistic pattern, meaning content. We have found a confirmation that antonyms can be expressed: as words with different roots and as words, which are formed with negative prefixes. The main criterion of antonyms is steady using their pairs in contexts. Antonym pairs thread Modern English. However, antonyms imply polarity of one of the semantic components of the words showing us the same main point. But understanding antonyms as polarity of the several semantic components of the words showing two polarity main points is possible.


1.3.1 Antonyms Proper Some authors, J.Lyons among them, suggest a different terminology. They distinguish antonyms proper and complementary antonyms. The chief characteristic feature of antonyms proper is that they are regularly gradable. This kind of antonyms proper represents contrary notions. They say, that grading is based on the operation of comparison. The group of words, which name intensity of feeling, ex. love -- attachment -- liking -- indifference -- antipathy -- hate, can be compared. [27] Whenever a sentence contains an antonym or an antonymic pair, it contains comparison. J. Lyons discusses an interesting example of antonyms also dealing with elephants: A small elephant is a large animal. The size-norm for elephants is not the same as that for all animals in general: the elephant which is small in comparison with other elephants may be big in comparison with animals as a class. This example may also serve to show the difference and parallelism between antonyms proper and complementarity (expressing contradictory notions). The semantic polarity in antonyms proper is relative, the opposition is gradual, it may embrace several elements characterized by different degrees of the same property. The comparison they imply is clear from the context. Large and little denote polar degrees of the same notion. The same referent which may be small as an elephant is a comparatively big animal, but it cannot be male as an elephant and female as an animal: a male elephant is a male animal. Having noted the difference between complementary antonyms and antonyms proper, we must also take into consideration that they have much in common so that in a wider sense both groups are taken as antonyms. 1.3.2 Complementaries J.Lyons among also describes complementaries. Like other antonyms they are regularly contrasted in speech (ex. male- female), and the elements of a complementary pair have similar distribution. According to him, the assertion of a sentence containing an antonymous or complementary term implies the denial of a corresponding sentence containing the other antonym or complementary: The poem is good > The poem is not bad (good : : bad -- antonyms proper) This is prose > This is not poetry (prose : : poetry -- complementaries) As to the difference in negation it is optional with antonyms proper: by saying that the poem is not good the speaker does not always mean that it is positively bad. Though more often we are inclined to take into consideration only the opposite ends of the scale and by saying that something is not bad we even, using litotes, say it is good. So complementaries are a subset of antonyms taken in a wider sense. The complementary opposite, sometimes is known as the contradictory. Like the gradable adjectives, the complementary adjectives share a semantic dimension, but it is a dimension which has no middle values. As Cruse describes it: The essence of a pair of complementaries is that between them they exhaustively divide some conceptual domain into two mutually exclusive compartments, so that what does not fall into one of the compartments must necessarily fall into the other". It is sometimes hard to decide whether a pair of opposites belongs in the set of gradable adjectives or in the set of complementaries. But, as Cruse says, in addition to adjectives, verbs such as pass - fail and obey - disobey, nouns such as day - night, prepositions such as in - out, and adverbs such as backwards - forwards are also sometimes considered examples of complementaries. Although by definition, complementaries are pairs which allow no logical middle term, in actual use, complementaries are sometimes used like gradable adjectives; for example, we can say that something is almost true, or that someone is barely alive. However, as Lyons (1977) points out, in these cases it may be the "secondary implications" of the words that are being graded rather than the main sense. That is, someone who is barely alive is actually entirely alive, but s/he is not as lively or energetic as most people are. Directional opposites are another type of opposite, described in Lyons (1977) and in greater detail in Cruse (1986). These are generally adverbs or prepositions and include pairs such as up - down, in - out, and clockwise - anticlockwise. Reersive opposites, described in Lehrer and Lehrer (1982) and Egan (1968), are yet another type of opposite, Egan describes reversive opposites in this way: These comprise adjectives or adverbs which signify a quality or verbs or nouns which signify an act or state that reverse or undo the quality, act, or state of the other. Although they are neither contradictory nor contrary terms, they present a clear opposition. This class contains many verbs, for example, tie - untie, marry - divorce, enter - leave, appear - disappear. Cruse and Lyons consider the reversive verbs to be a subtype of directional opposites, because they all describe activities which result in an object undergoing a change from one state to another. Thus Cruse says the opposition seen in pairs of reversive verbs is similar to the kind of opposition in pairs of directional prepositions such as to - from. 1.3.3 Converives Relational opposites is the term given by Cruse [26] also called relative terms according to Egan [27] and conversive terms difined by Lyons [27], include pairs such as above - below, predecessor - successor, parent - child and teacher - student. Egan describes these as pairs of words which indicate such a relationship that one of them cannot be used without suggesting the other. Cruse considers this class to also be a subclass of the directional opposites. He says that these pairs "express a relationship between two entities by specifying the direction of one relative to the other along some axis." In examples such as above - below, this axis is spatial, but other examples (e.g. ancestor - descendant) involve "an analogical or metaphorical extension of spatial dimensions". Lyons points out that many opposites of this type involve social roles (teacher - student, doctor - patient) or kinship relations (father - mother), and these types of reciprocal relations have been wll documented in many languages in the anthropological literature. Conversives (or relational opposites) as F.R. Palmer calls them denote one and the same referent or situation as viewed from different points of view, with a reversal of the order of participants and their roles. The interchangeability and contextual behaviour are specific. The relation is closely connected with grammar, namely with grammatical contrast of active and passive. The substitution of a conversive does not change the meaning of a sentence if it is combined with appropriate regular morphological and syntactical changes and selection of appropriate prepositions, ex. He gave her flowers. She received flowers from him. = She was given flowers by him. An important point setting them apart is that conversive relations are possible within the semantic structure of one and the same word. M.V. Nikitin mentions such verbs as wear, sell, tire, smell, etc. and such adjectives as glad, sad, dubious, lucky and others. It should be noted that sell in this case is not only the conversive of buy, it means be sold, find buyers. The same contrast of active and passive sense is observed in adjectives: sad saddening and saddened, dubious and doubtful mean feeling doubt and inspiring doubt. So, semantically antonyms can be classified as gradable antonyms (describing something, which can be measured and compared with something else), complementary antonyms (which are matter of being either one thing or another), and converse antonyms (these antonyms always depend on each other). Morphological classification of antonyms includes two types of antonyms: · Absolute or Root Antonyms (with root polarity), and · Derivational antonyms (which has morphems with polar meanings). Taking into account the main aims of these investigation, all these points of scientific view should be worked out and analyzed in the next part of the Course Paper. Lexico-Semantic meaning of words distinguishes three essential types of lexical meaning of words: nominative meaning determined by reality, phraseologically bound meaning of words depending on the peculiarities of their usage in a given language, and syntactically conditioned meanings of words are those which change with the change of the environment.the structure of lexical meaning of a word we distinguish two main components: denotative and connotative. Polysemantic word may have an antonym or several antonyms for each of its meanings. Antonyms are not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Antonyms are similar as words belonging to the same part of speech and the same semantic field, having the same grammatical meaning and functions, as well as similar collocations. According to their morphological structure antonyms may be classified into: root antonyms and derivational antonyms (having the same roots but different derivational affixes).

The term antonym (and the related antonymy) is commonly taken to be synonymous with opposite, but antonym also has other more restricted meanings. Graded (or gradable) antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite and which lie on a continuous spectrum (hot, cold). Complementary antonyms are word pairs whose meanings are opposite but whose meanings do not lie on a continuous spectrum (push, pull). Relational antonyms are word pairs where opposite makes sense only in the context of the relationship between the two meanings (teacher, pupil). These more restricted meanings may not apply in all scholarly contexts, with Lyons (1968, 1977) defining antonym to mean gradable antonyms, and Crystal (2003) warning that antonymy and antonym should be regarded with care.