1. Antonyms

Antonymy – (against and name) – another semantic subsystem is based on polarity or contrast of meaning, opposite meaning (young – old; early – late; good – bad.

Antonyms are traditionally defined as words of the same part of speech which are opposite in meaning. Antonymy is oppositeness in meaning. Not every word of a language may have an antonym though practically every word may have a synonym. Antonymy is different in different parts of speech. Different lexical-semantic variants of a word have different antonyms. Antonyms may be defined as two or more words of the same part of speech which have some common denotational components in their semantic structure, but express some contrary or contradictory (contrasting) notions; they are characterized by different types of semantic contrast of denotational meaning and interchangeability at least in some contexts. According to the relationship between the notions expressed antonyms are divided into contradictories and contraries. According to their morphological structure antonyms may be subdivided into root antonyms and derivational antonyms. According to the relations of the general to the particular (specific) words are studied in their hyponymic relations.

Classification of antonyms

The contrast of their meanings is proved by definite types of contexual co-occurence. Words regularly contrasted as homogeneous sentence members, or identically used in parallel constructions in typical contexts, are called absolute antonyms. Another important criterion suggested by V.N. Komissarov is the possibility of substitution and identical lexical valency. Unlike synonyms, antonyms do not differ either in style, emotional colouring or distribution. The possibility of substitution and identical valency show that semantic polarity is a very special kind of difference implying a great deal of sameness. A large number of words listed as antonyms fall into two well-known logical categories- 1.Contradictories: perfect — imperfect; agree — disagree; single — married, dead — alive. 2.Contraries: cold — hot; cold — warm. Contradictories and contraries may be distinguished according to whether the terms for which the relation holds are gradable or not. Among other antonymous groups are incompatibles (morning — night; red — green); reverse terms, e.g. destructive — constructive (though there exists an opposition,destructive :: harmless); contrasted terms, e.g. frank — hypocritical; vigilant — careless. Formally English antonyms fall into two types: 1.formally related antonyms (derivational antonyms), 2. Formally unrelated antonyms (root antonyms). Synonymy and antonymy are correlative and sometimes over­lapping notions, but the antonymic oppositions are based on regular co-occurrence of words combined with the approximate similarities of distribution and stylistic value, the synonymic oppositions are based on similarities in denotation with the distinctive features in distribution and stylistic or emotional value. Together with synonyms, antonyms represent the language's important expressive means.