ESL Lab Africa
Learning English as a second language
UNIT 4 SECTION FOUR
ANTONYMY
Antonymy is a Semantic concept that deals with the oppositeness of words. Thakur (1999), defines antonymy as words having opposite meanings. Lyons (1977), states that antonymy is the relationship between Lexical items whose meanings are in opposition to each other.
It's thus evident that antonymy is a sense relation that deals with oppositeness of words
However, it's must be noted that antonymy is not an absolute term in Semantic relation.
Antonymy of a may be determined by the polarity of words, age, context, s*x and degree of oppositeness in comparison. Its as also worthy to note that the concept of oppositeness may differ from one person to another or from society to society depending on context and cultural differences.
TYPES OF ANTONYMS
I. Simple Antonyms
ii.Gradable Antonyms
iii. Non gradable
iv. Converse opposite.
SIMPLE ANTONYMS
Simple Antonymy means that the truth of one word implies the falsity the other word. In other word, simple antonymy means that the negative of one word implies the positive of the other word in a pair.
Simple Antonymy is an absolute concept of oppositenes which means that the presence of one word implies the absence of the other. Simple Antonymy is also called complementary opposite or binary opposite/binary pairs.
Simple Antonyms do not have intermediate terms or degree of variations. Simple Antonyms are restricted in meaning so do not have any middle term. Examples of simple antonymy are: male/female, pass/fail,
Single/married, buy/sell, life/death, negative/, up/down, positive, Yes/No, love/hate, push/pull etc.
GRADABLE ANTONYMS
Gradable antonym is semantic relationship in which the positive sense of one word does not necessarily mean the negative of the other pair. Unlike simple antonymy, gradable antonyms are opposite words having variation of meanings by degree.
These Antonyms are graded in a sense that the oppositeness can be measured in degrees or compared by the use by of comparative and superlative adjectives.
This sense relation
is normally associated with adjectives and adverbs which can take: very, more/most or er/est in comparison. For instance, between the sense of hot and cold there are levels of hotness or coldness, so the opposite of hot is not automatically cold.
Example: It is possible to compare the hotness of two items as follows:
i.Dubai is hotter than Accra. ii. Norway is colder than France
iii. Greenland is the coldest region of the world. Again, the hotness of an item can be graded like, very hot, hot, warm, warmer, cold, colder, coldest and so on.
Gradable antonyms are also called graded opposites or graded Antonyms. Examples:
Good, better, best.
Slow, slower, slowest.
Big, bigger, biggest..
Useful, more useful, most useful etc.
CONVERSE ANTONYMS
This refers to a pair of opposite words having close relationship with each other such that one item cannot exist without the other. Converse Antonyms are also called relational opposites. Examples are: husband/wife, parent/ child, teacher/student,
Employer/Employee.
17/12/2021
17/12/2021
17/12/2021