7.2 Oppositeness of Sense

The second semantic relation is antonymy, which is the sense relation that exists between lexemes fundamentally opposite in meaning. Brown defines antonymy as “a relation in which two lexemes share all relevant properties except for one that causes them to be incompatible” (p.26), which is polarity of meanings. The lexemes freedom and book cannot be compared because they do not share a common semantic ground on which they are contrasted. However, antonyms may realize their relation in the context where items share a common ground or if they hold the same sense. This feature depends on the context and situation; for example, in discussing colors, dull and bright are antonymous, but if dull characterizes a person, then the antonym of dull is sharp or bright. If dull is used in reference to blades or knives, then the antonym of dull is sharp.

There are several ways where lexemes can be opposites. One of them is complementary, or contradictory, pairs. Complementary antonyms are the ones, whose “senses completely bisect some domain” (Brown, p.26). Complementary antonyms do not have a middle ground; they are absolute opposites. There may exist only two possibilities—either one or the other. “The items complement each other in their meaning, and thus are known as complementary antonyms” (Crystal, p. 165). The examples of complementary antonyms are man—woman, girl—boy, married—single, dead—alive, win—lose, exit -- entrance, sink -- float, true -- false, pass -- fail, legal—illegal, and others.

The second group of antonyms is called gradable, or polar, antonyms, which include “the concept of scale between two endpoints” (Tserdanelis & Wong, p. 225). If two antonyms are opposite in meaning, and at the same time there can be seen endpoints of some scale (temperature, height, size, age, and others), then they are gradable antonyms. Gradable antonyms have a middle ground. The examples of gradable antonyms include toward – away, hot—cold, good—bad, slow—fast, rapid—slow, and others. One solution to gradable antonyms is to treat the items as polysemous, “having relative and absolute senses in contrary and complementary relations, respectively (Brown, p.26), e.g., hot—warm—cold.

The third group of antonyms is based on the oppositeness, where one item presupposes the other, and this oppositeness is called converseness. Some scholars name these types of antonyms relational (Denham & Lobeck, 2010, p. 296; Tserdanelis & Wong, 2004, p.225). Some examples of these antonyms are husband—wife, buy—sell, above –below, over—under, parent-child, teacher—student, doctor—patient, friend—enemy, lawyer—client, day—night, begin—end, and others. There cannot be a husband without a wife or a doctor without a patient, and there cannot be a parent without a child. Converseness presupposes that each antonym describes the same relation or activity from a different side. Reverses are relations between terms describing movement, where one term describes movement in one direction and the other,the same movement, in the opposite direction.

All languages have antonyms, and antonyms share the same types of relation.