WHAT IS ANTONYMY

WHAT IS ANTONYMY. Traditionally antonyms are defined as words that have opposite meaning.

This definition is open to criticism.

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. Like synonyms antonyms are interchangeable at least at some contexts hot in its figurative meaning angry, excited is chiefly combined with the names of unpleasant emotions hot resentment, hot scorn its antonym cold occurs with the same words.

Unlike synonyms antonyms do not differ in style, or emotional colouring they express, as a rule, emotional characteristics of the same intensity. So antonyms are two or more words belonging to the same pat of speech, contradictory or contrary in meaning, and interchangeable at least at some contexts. Almost every word can have one or more synonyms comparatively few have antonyms because not all notions can be opposed to one another. Antonyms are primarily found in adjectives, nouns expressing quality and state.

It should be noted, that as words are polysemantic ones and the same words may have different antonyms light bag-heavy bag light wind-strong wind light colors-dark colors. Generally we may divide antonyms into 2 groups absolute and derivational. Absolute antonyms are subdivided into antonyms proper where opposition is gradual cold cool-warm hot large-little or small, complementaries having a binary opposition dead-alive, single-married, conversives denoting one and the same referent from different points of view to sell-to buy, to give to receive. Derivational antonyms may be affixal happy-unhappy, logical-illogical or suffixal hopeful-hopeless.

It is not always possible to replace a word by its opposite. Where it is possible you may notice that some words have several opposites depending on the context. The opposite of old, for example, can be new or young depending on the situation. WORDS THAT ARE THEIR OWN OPPOSITES There are some antonyms that are called auto-antonyms - words that have two opposite meanings.

For example, to clip may mean to cut a little piece off, or to put a little piece on. To look over may mean careful scrutiny or that you missed an important detail. Sometimes the antonymy may be historical nice used to denote an unpleasant quality. There is a discussion of whether any generalities could be made about such pairs. Are they regularly motivated, or always a coincidence Meanwhile, here are more auto-antonyms that got left out of last post One auto-antonym is moot, which at once means suitable for debate and not worth discussing.

Impregnable able to impregnated or inable to be pregnated, copesmate used to mean antagonist and now means partner or comrade, It turns out that they were having a week celebrating fence-setters, evidently another term for what is calling auto-antonyms. BRUCE NEVIN reminds us of an intercontinental auto-antonym pair public school in Britain is private school in the USA and vice versa.

Infer historically and now, informally this means imply as well. Rent, lease several pointed out to me that these means both lend and borrow. In addition, Chinese operates similarly with respect to this pair, and WOLFGANG LIPP notes a similar auto-antonymy to represent give and take in pronunciation but not in writing. Learnteach in sub - Standard English, these two meanings fuse into learn, as they do in standard Russian uchit Here is sensitive this may describe either someone with profound understanding for the feelings of others, and tolerates differences of opinion thus sensitivity training for group leaders as well as a paranoid who doesnt listen to what people are really saying, and decides to take everything as a personal insult.

Holewhole Spelled the first way, an entire absence of matter the second, entire presence. This reminds me of pit which can be either a hollow or the stone of a fruit.

Which reminds me of seeded oranges insert your favourite fruit here - oranges with seeds as opposed to navel oranges, which have no seeds, OR oranges that have had their seeds removed. If you think youre beginning to see some patterns here, youre not alone There were received a few theories on the ultimate essence of auto-antonymy, historical, psychological, and sociological approaches. These theories show that auto-antonymy comes about for a variety of reasons. Ive been enjoying the discussion of words that are their own antonyms.

At first I thought the classic example of Latin Altus high or deep might fit in, but as I thought about it I figured it was just unmarked for point of view say when cleaning out an empty swimming pool then Deep becomes high so I just looked to see if it was on the list and got a comment. No. Good. But one that I have long wondered about is risk as in he risked winning the game. I was shocked as a teenager the first time I saw he risked losing the game or something like that in print, because I previously thought and am still inclined toward the complement of risk being the desirable result, not the undesirable one. Whether or not this fits into this discussion, I wonder if anyone else has had a similar or opposite reaction or any thoughts about whats going on in the case of risk LINGUIST List 6.86 p 321995 Dr. Alex Eulenberg USA Department of Speech, University of Newcastle upon Tyne, UK .