Semantics

PARADIGMATIC RELATIONS I: A WORD VIEW 127
b) The terms are usually relative, so a thick pencil is likely to be thinner
than a thin girl.
In some pairs one term is more basic and common than the other. For
example, in the pair long / short, it is more common to say How long it is?
than to say How short it is?
5.3.3.5. Reverses
The prototypical reverse relation is a relation between terms describing
movement, where one term describes movement in one direction and the
other the same movement in the opposite direction. For example, the
terms pull / push on a swing door tells you in which direction to apply
force. Other such pairs are:
come/go, go /return, ascend /descend.
The following terms can also be called reverses when describing motion:
up / down, in / out, right / left (turn)
And, by extension, verbs referring to processes that can be reversed
can also be identified as reverse antonyms:
inflate / deflate, expand /contract, fill/ empty, knit / unravel
5.3.3.6. Converses
Converses are terms which describe a relation between two entities
from alternate points of view, as in:
own / belong to
above / below
employer / employee
For example, if we are told that John owns this house, we automatically
know that This house belongs to John. Or that, if Maria is Philip’s employer,
we know that Philip is Maria’s employee. This is part of the speaker’s lexical
or semantic knowledge of the English language.
The two sentences below are paraphrases and can be used to describe
the same situation:
My office is above the cafeteria / The cafeteria is below my office