RELATIONAL OPPOSITE

Oleh Jusnaedi (204 011 060 34)
Relational opposites A quite different kind of 'opposite' is found with pairs of words which exhibit the reversal. In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow. The notion of incompatibility here refers to fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not the other pair member. For example, something that is long entails that it is not short. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members in a set of opposites. The relationship between opposites is known as opposition. A member of a pair of opposites can generally be determined by the question What is the opposite of X ?

The term antonym (and the related antonym) has also been commonly used as a term that is synonymous with opposite; however, the term also has other more restricted meanings. One usage has antonym referring to both gradable opposites, such as long : short, and (non-gradable) complementary opposites, such as male : female, while opposites of the types up : down and precede : follow are excluded from the definition. A third usage (particularly that of the influential Lyons 1968, 1977) defines the term antonym as referring to only gradable opposites (the long : short type) while the other types are referred to with different terms. Therefore, as Crystal (2003) warns, the terms antonym and antonym should be regarded with care. In this article, the usage of Lyons (1963, 1977) and Cruse (1986, 2004) will be followed where antonym is restricted to gradable opposites and opposite is used as the general term referring to any of the subtypes discussed below.



Opposites are, interestingly, simultaneously different and similar in meaning. Typically, they differ in only one dimension of meaning, but are similar in most other respects, including similarity in grammar and positions of semantic abnormality. Additionally, not all words have an opposite. Some words are non-opposable. For example, animal or plant species have no binary opposites (other than possible gender opposites such as lion/lioness, etc.); the word platypus therefore has no word that stands in opposition to it (hence the unanswerability of What is the opposite of platypus?). Other words are opposable but have an accidental gap in a given language's lexicon. For example, the word devout lacks a lexical opposite, but it is fairly easy to conceptualize a parameter of devoutness where devout lies at the positive pole with a missing member at the negative pole. Opposites of such words can nevertheless sometimes be formed with the prefixes un- or non-, with varying degrees of naturalness. For example, the word undevout appears in Webster's dictionary of 1828, while the pattern of non-person could conceivably be extended to non-platypus.


Opposites may be viewed as a special type of incompatibility.

1.

Words that are incompatible create the following type of entailment (where X is a given word and Y is a different word incompatible with word X)
2.

Sentence A is X entails sentence A is not Y
3.

An example of an incompatible pair of words is cat .

dog: It's a cat entails It's not a dog

4.

This incompatibility is also found in the opposite pairs fast : slow and stationary : moving, as can be seen below:

It's fast entails It's not slow

5.

It's stationary entails It's not moving

Cruse (2004) identifies some basic characteristics of opposites:


* banality

* inheritress

* patency


Complementary


Complementary opposites are pairs that express absolute opposites, like mortal and immortal.

* interactives

* satisfactives

* counteractives


Antonyms (Gradable Opposites)


For the purposes of this article (see introduction), antonyms, from the Greek anti ("opposite") and onoma ("name") are gradable opposites. Gradable opposites lie at opposite ends of a continuous spectrum of meanings; examples are hot and cold, slow and fast, and fat and skinny. Words may have several different antonyms, depending on the meaning: both long and tall can be antonyms of short.


Though the word antonym was only coined by philologists in the 19th century, such relationships are a fundamental part of a language, in contrast to synonyms, which are a result of history and drawing of fine distinctions, or homonyms, which are mostly etymological accidents or coincidences.


Languages often have ways of creating antonyms as an easy extension of lexicon. For example, English has the prefixes in- and un-, so unreal is the antonym of real and indocile is of docile.

Some planned languages abundantly use such devices to reduce vocabulary multiplication. Esperanto has mal- (compare bona = "good" and malbona = "bad"), Damin has kuri- (tjitjuu "small", kuritjitjuu "large") and Newspeak has un- (as in ungood, "bad").


Directional Opposites


* antipodals

* reversives

* converses (or relational opposites)

* pseudo-opposites


Auto- Antonyms


An auto-antonym is a word that can have opposite meanings in different contexts or under separate definitions:


* enjoin (to prohibit, issue injunction; to order, command)

* fast (moving quickly; fixed firmly in place)

* cleave (to split; to adhere)

* sanction (punishment, prohibition ; permission)

* stay (remain in a specific place, postpone; guide direction, movement)






Relational opposites A quite different kind of 'opposite' is found with pairs of words which exhibit the reversal of a relationship between…….:


1.

Semantic Relationships Between Words


Modern studies of semantics are interested in meaning primarily in terms of word and sentence relationships. Let's examine some semantic relationships between words:


Synonyms are words with similar meanings. They are listed in a special type of dictionary called a thesaurus.. A regular dictionary lists words according to form, usually in alphabetical order; a thesaurus lists words according to meaning. Synonyms usually differ in at least one semantic feature. Sometimes the feature is objective (denotative), referring to some actual, real world difference in the referents: walk, lumber, stroll, meander, lurch, stagger, stride, mince. Sometimes the feature is subjective (connotative), referring to how the speaker feels about the referent rather than any real difference in the referent itself: die, pass away, give up the ghost, kick the bucket, croak. There tend to be very few absolute synonyms in a language. Example: sofa and couch are nearly complete synonyms, yet they differ in their collocability in at least one way: one may say couch potato, but not *sofa potato.


One special type of partial synonym is called a paronym. Paronyms are words with associated meanings which also have great similarities in form: proscribe/ prescribe, industrial/ industrious, except/accept, affect/effect. Many errors in speech and writing are due to mixups involving paronyms.



Antonyms are words that have the opposite meaning. Oppositeness is a logical category. There are three types:


Complementary pairs are antonyms in which the presence of one quality or state signifies the absence of the other and vice versa. single/ married, not pregnant/ pregnant There are no intermediate states. (Joking aside, you can't really be "a little pregnant" or "kinda married.")


Gradable pairs are antonyms which allow for a natural, gradual transition between two poles: good/bad, hot/ cold . It is possible to be a little cold or very cold, etc.


Relational opposites are antonyms which share the same semantic features, only the focus, or direction, is reversed: tie/untie, buy/sell, give/receive, teacher/pupil, father/son.


Some concepts lack logical opposites that can be described in terms of any special word; colors are a good example: the logical opposite of red is not red. Such concepts may form relational antonyms, however, through symbolic systems of thinking. For instance, in Cold War thinking, the relational opposite of American is Russian; in current US politics, the relational opposite of Democrat is Republican. These are cultural relational opposites.


Homonyms are words that have the same form but different meanings. There are two major types of homonyms, based upon whether the meanings of the word are historically connected or result from coincidence.



Coincidental homonyms are the result of such historical accidents as phonetic convergence of two originally different forms or the borrowing of a new word which happens to be identical to an old word. There is usually no natural link between the two meanings: the bill of a bird vs the bill one has to pay; or the bark of a dog vs the bark of a tree.


The second type of homonym, the polysemous [pAli∆si‡∆m´s] homonym, results when multiple meanings develop historically from the same word. The process by which a word acquires new meanings is called polysemy [pAli∆si‡∆mi∆]. Unlike coincidental homonyms, polysemous homonyms usually preserve some perceptible semantic link marking the development of one meaning out of the other, as in the leg of chair and the leg of person; or the face of a person vs. the face of a clock.


Sometimes it is impossible to tell whether two words of identical form are true homonyms (historically unrelated) or polysemous homonyms (historically related), such as ice scate vs. skate the fish: skate--fish (from Old English skata') ice skate (from Dutch schaat'); deer/dear are historically related (cf. darling, German Tier, animal.)


Since polysemy is so difficult to separate from true homonymy, dictionaries usually order entries according to 1) the first recorded appearance of word or 2) frequency of meaning use. This is a problem for lexicographers, the people who study words and write dictionaries.


There are universal tendencies in the directionality of polysemy. studies of polysemy in a wide variety of languages generally find the following directions in meaning shift:

1) body part to part of object. (hands, face, lip, elbow, belly, vein of gold or of a leaf) But: appendix.


2) animal to human for personality traits (shrew, bear, wolf, fox, quiet as a fish) But: my cat is a real Einstein.


3) space to time (long, short, plural)


4) spatial to sound (melt, rush,)


5) sound to color (loud, clashing, mellow)


6) Physical, visible attribute to emotional or mental, invisible quality (crushed, big head, green with envy, yellow coward, sharp/dull, spark)


Directionality in polysemy seems to be logically motivated: concrete meanings give rise to abstract ones (sharp knife --> sharp mind); mundane gives rise to the technical (chip of wood --> computer chip).


2.

Relational Opposite Of Lexical


An opposite lexical relation is an association between two lexical units which have the opposite core meanings in some contexts.

Examples (English)

Directional converses


Opposites marking the two directions along an axis.

{(east, west), (up, down), (convex, concave)}

Relational converses


Opposites which specify the relative positions of two entities on opposite sides or poles of a spatial or relational axis.


Antonyms


When measuring or judging in a certain way, something can be either X or Y, or it can be neither.

When measuring temperature, something can be either hot or cold, or it can be neither.


Directional converses


If something goes (or faces) X and it turns around, it goes (or faces) Y.


If something goes up and it turns around, it goes down.

If something is X, oriented the other way it is Y.

If something is convex, oriented the other way it is concave.











BIBLIOGRAPHY


Crystal, David. (2003). A dictionary of linguistics and phonetics (5th ed.). Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing.