Lexical Semantics: Opposites

Lexical Semantics:
Opposites
Cruse (1986), Chapter 9

Overview
opposites
– complements
verbs & adjectives
– antonyms
3 sub-types
– inherentness
– implicit superlatives
– stative verbs
– contrastive aspects

Overview
opposites
– complements
verbs & adjectives
– antonyms
3 sub-types
– inherentness
– implicit superlatives
– stative verbs
– contrastive aspects

Opposites
- cover a very large variety of
phenomena
- use in natural language generation is
hard to make explicit:
how expensive is this book?
vs.
? how cheap is this book?

Opposites
- probably the one sense relation that is
most readily understood by ordinary
speakers
- most languages seem to have an nonlearned
term for it:
Arabic: ‘aksi; Chinese: tao-fan;
French: contraire;
German: gegensatz; ...

Opposites
Definition:
Two words are opposites if they have
most semantic characteristics in common
but if they also differ in a significant way
on at least one essential semantic
dimension.
Examples: good:bad, love:hate

Opposites
various degrees of opposition:
prototypical instances: good:bad,
large:small, true:false, top:bottom
peripheral examples: mother:father,
brother:sister, town:country

Overview
opposites
– complements
verbs & adjectives
– antonyms
3 sub-types
– inherentness
– implicit superlatives
– stative verbs
– contrastive aspects

Definition:
Complements
Complementaries are a
special class of
opposites which divide
the whole conceptual
space exactly into two
non-overlapping
compartments.

Complements
Examples:
true:false,
dead:alive,
open:shut,
pass:fail (an examination),
male:female,
even:odd

Complements
test:
If one term is denied, the other term has
to be asserted - and vice versa:
This dog is male.
entails and is entailed by
This dog is not female.

Complements
another test:
Denying both terms should be odd.
? The door is neither open nor shut.
? The number is neither even nor odd.

Complements - verbs
four possible types of opposites
reversives: be born:live:die
= continuance of a state vs. change to an
alternative state
interactives: invite:accept:turn down
= relation of the type stimulus-response

Complements - verbs
four possible types of opposites
satisfactive: seek:find
=attempt to do something + successful
performance
counteractive: attack:defend:submit
= aggressive action + active and passive
response

Complements - adjectives
- some are not gradable
? extremely true
? fairly dead
- often one member of the pair is more
readily to be graded:
? slightly shut, ? more shut than before
wide open, more open than before

Overview
opposites
– complements
verbs & adjectives
– antonyms
3 sub-types
– inherentness
– implicit superlatives
– stative verbs
– contrastive aspects

Antonymes
Antonyms do not necessarily partition the
conceptual space into two clearly distinct
parts which cover the whole conceptual
domain, but some overlap or space in
between is possible

Antonymes
Anotymes refer to degrees of some
variable property such as length, speed,
weight, accuracy etc.
Examples: long:short, fast:slow,
easy:difficult, good:bad, hot:cold,
cheap:expensive

Antonymes

Antonymes
antonyms have to be interpreted
comparatively:
small elephant vs. big mouse
reference point: average value within a
class

Antonymes – 3 sub-types
difference between pseudo- and true
comparatives:
It’s short, but it’s longer than the other one.
longer = pseudo comparative
? It’s hot, but it’s colder than yesterday.
colder = true comparative

Antonymes – 3 sub-types
polar antonyms: long:short
(pseudo-comparative corresponding to
each member of a pair)
It’s short, but it’s longer than the other one.
It’s long, but it’s shorter than the other one.
- objectively descriptive

Antonymes – 3 sub-types
overlapping antonyms: good:bad,
clean:dirty
(one member of the pair has a pseudocomparative
and the other one a true
comparative)
John is cruel, but he is kinder than Mary
? Mary is kind, but she is more cruel than John.
- to evaluate

Antonymes – 3 sub-types
equipollent antonyms: hot:cold,
happy:sad
(both members have true comparatives)
? It’s hot, but it’s colder than yesterday.
? It’s cold, but it’s hotter than yesterday.
- referring to sensations, emotions,
subjective reactions

Antonymes – 3 sub-types
polar antonyms:
One member is marked, the other is not;
the unmarked one can be used in a
neutral way:
How long is it?
? How short is it?

Antonymes – 3 sub-types

Antonymes – 3 sub-types
overlapping & equipollent antonyms:
each member of the pair seems to be
autonomous:
How cold is it?
How hot is it?

Antonymes – 3 sub-types

Overview
opposites
– complements
verbs & adjectives
– antonyms
3 sub-types
– inherentness
– implicit superlatives
– stative verbs
– contrastive aspects

Inherentness
overlapping antonyms:
The scale of merit (good, better)
overlaps with that of badness (bad,
worse), because something bad can be
described as being better than something
worse.

Inherentness
but:
Mary’s headache is worse than John’s.
? John’s headache is better than Mary’s.
There are some lexical items that do not
work with better because their referents
are ‘inherently bad’ (e.g. headache,
depression, failure, storm, earthquake,
flood...)

Inherentness
polar antonyms: no inherentness
Example: dwarfs are inherently short,
but it’s possible to say:
The dwarfs standing at the right side of the tree
are taller than those standing left of it.

Overview
opposites
– complements
verbs & adjectives
– antonyms
3 sub-types
– inherentness
– implicit superlatives
– stative verbs
– contrastive aspects

Implicit superlatives
Some scales have implicit superlatives.
E.g. the scale of size: not only
small:large, but huge:tiny,
enormous:minute
other examples: beautiful:ugly,
brilliant:stupid

Implicit superlatives
distinct properties of implicit superlatives:
resistant to grading: ? very huge
? slightly enormous
can be modified by absolutely:
absolutely huge
absolutely enormous

Overview
opposites
– complements
verbs & adjectives
– antonyms
3 sub-types
– inherentness
– implicit superlatives
– stative verbs
– contrastive aspects

Stative Verbs
represent psychological states (e.g.
like:dislike)
fully gradable: I quite like it.
neutral area between the opposing
poles:
I neither like nor dislike her – she leaves me
totally indifferent.

Overview
opposites
– complements
verbs & adjectives
– antonyms
3 sub-types
– inherentness
– implicit superlatives
– stative verbs
– contrastive aspects

Contrastive Aspects
no specific knowledge about the
existence of sub-classes of antonyms in
other languages than English

Contrastive Aspects
one observation: if translated to another
language a pair of antonyms will not
necessarily belong to the same structural
group as the English pair:
English: hot:cold – equipollent
French: chaud:froid – polar

Contrastive Aspects
equipollent (hot:cold):
more objective – “primitive”
polar (long:short) & overlapping
(good:bad):
more subjective – “conceptualised”
- English is relatively subjective.
- Macedonian is very conceptualised,
since all antonyms polar ones.