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In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an appears in Websters dictionary of 1828, while the pat-
inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the op- tern of non-person could conceivably be extended to non-
posite pairs big : small, long : short, and precede : follow. platypus. Conversely, some words appear to be a prexed
The notion of incompatibility here refers to the fact that form of an opposite, but the opposite term does not exist,
one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not the other such as inept, which appears to be in- + *ept; such a word
pair member. For example, something that is long entails is known as an unpaired word.
that it is not short. It is referred to as a 'binary' relation-
Opposites may be viewed as a special type of
ship because there are two members in a set of opposites. incompatibility.[1] Words that are incompatible cre-
The relationship between opposites is known as opposi- ate the following type of entailment (where X is a given
tion. A member of a pair of opposites can generally be word and Y is a dierent word incompatible with word
determined by the question What is the opposite of X ? X):[2]
The term antonym (and the related antonymy) is
commonly taken to be synonymous with opposite, [3]
sentence A is X entails sentence A is not Y
but antonym also has other more restricted meanings.
Graded (or gradable) antonyms are word pairs whose An example of an incompatible pair of words is cat : dog:
meanings are opposite and which lie on a continuous
spectrum (hot, cold). Complementary antonyms are Its a cat entails Its not a dog [4]
word pairs whose meanings are opposite but whose mean-
ings do not lie on a continuous spectrum (push, pull). Re- This incompatibility is also found in the opposite pairs
lational antonyms are word pairs where opposite makes fast : slow and stationary : moving, as can be seen below:
sense only in the context of the relationship between the
two meanings (teacher, pupil). These more restricted Its fast entails Its not slow [5]
meanings may not apply in all scholarly contexts, with
Its stationary entails Its not moving
Lyons (1968, 1977) dening antonym to mean gradable
antonyms, and Crystal (2003) warns that antonymy and
Cruse (2004) identies some basic characteristics of op-
antonym should be regarded with care.
posites:
binarity
1 General discussion
inherentness
Opposites are simultaneously dierent and similar in patency
meaning. Typically, they dier in only one dimension of
meaning, but are similar in most other respects, includ-
ing similarity in grammar and positions of semantic ab-
normality. Additionally, not all words have an opposite.
Some words are non-opposable. For example, animal or 2 Antonyms
plant species have no binary opposites (other than possi-
ble gender opposites such as lion/lioness, etc.); the word An antonym is one of a pair of words with opposite mean-
platypus therefore has no word that stands in opposition ings. Each word in the pair is the antithesis of the other.
to it (hence the unanswerability of What is the opposite of A word may have more than one antonym. There are
platypus?). three categories of antonyms identied by the nature of
Other words are opposable but have an accidental gap in the relationship between the opposed meanings. Where
a given languages lexicon. For example, the word devout the two words have denitions that lie on a continu-
lacks a lexical opposite, but it is fairly easy to conceptu- ous spectrum of meaning, they are gradable antonyms.
alize a parameter of devoutness where devout lies at the Where the meanings do not lie on a continuous spectrum
positive pole with a missing member at the negative pole. and the words have no other lexical relationship, they are
Opposites of such words can nevertheless sometimes be complementary antonyms. Where the two meanings are
formed with the prexes un- or non-, with varying de- opposite only within the context of their relationship, they
grees of naturalness. For example, the word undevout are relational antonyms.
1
2 6 NOTES
A complementary antonym is one of a pair of words with stay (remain in a specic place, postpone; guide di-
opposite meanings, where the two meanings do not lie on rection, movement)
a continuous spectrum. There is no continuous spectrum
between push and pull but they are opposite in meaning
and are therefore complementary antonyms. Other ex- 5 See also
amples include: dead : alive, o : on, day : night, exit
: entrance, exhale : inhale, occupied : vacant, identical : -onym
dierent.
Antithesis
Litotes
2.3 Relational antonyms
Relational oppositeness
A relational antonym is one of a pair of words with oppo-
site meanings, where opposite makes sense only in the Semantic dierential
context of the relationship between the two meanings. Thesaurus
There is no lexical opposite of teacher, but teacher and
pupil are opposite within the context of their relationship.
This makes them relational antonyms. Other examples
include: husband : wife, doctor : patient, predator : prey, 6 Notes
teach : learn, servant : master, come : go, parent : child.
[1] Incompatibility can be compared to exclusive disjunction
in logic.
3 Opposite [2] There are four types of entailment useful to lexical seman-
tics:
Some planned languages abundantly use such devices unilateral entailment: Its a sh unilaterally entails
to reduce vocabulary multiplication. Esperanto has Its an animal. (It is unilateral, i.e. one-directional,
mal- (compare bona = good and malbona = bad), because Its an animal does not entail Its a sh since
Damin has kuri- (tjitjuu small, kuritjitjuu large) and it could be a dog or a cat or some other animal.)
Newspeak has un- (as in ungood, bad). logical equivalence (or multilateral entailment):
The party commenced at midnight entails The party
began at midnight AND The party began at midnight
3.1 Directional opposites also entails The party commenced at midnight.
contrariety: The sentences 'X is blue all over' and
antipodals 'X is red all over' are contraries since both cannot
be simultaneously true. On the Aristotelian square
reversives of opposition, the A and E type propositions ('All
As are Bs and 'No As are Bs, respectively) are
converses (or relational opposites) contraries of each other. Propositions that can-
not be simultaneously false (e.g. 'Something is red'
pseudo-opposites and 'Something is not red') are said to be subcon-
traries.
Relational antonyms (Converses) are pairs in contradiction: Its dead entails Its not alive AND
which one describes a relationship between two ob- Its not alive entails Its dead AND Its alive entails
jects and the other describes the same relationship Its not dead AND Its not dead entails Its alive. Its
when the two objects are reversed, such as parent dead and Its alive are said to be in a contradictory
and child, teacher and student, or buy and sell. relation.
3
[3] Stated dierently, if the proposition expressed by the sen- Lehrer, Adrienne J. (1985). Markedness and
tence A is X is TRUE, then the proposition expressed by antonymy. Journal of Linguistics, 21, 397-421.
the sentence A is not Y is also TRUE.
Lehrer, Adrienne J. (2002). Paradigmatic re-
[4] It is assumed here that it has the same referent. lations of exclusion and opposition I: Gradable
[5] It is also assumed here the reference point of comparison antonymy and complementarity. In D. A. Cruse,
for these adjectives remains the same in both sentences. F. Hundsnurscher, M. Job, & P.-R. Lutzeier (Eds.),
For example, a rabbit might be fast compared to turtle but Lexikologie: Ein internationales Handbuch zur Natur
slow compared to a sport car. It is essential when deter- und Struktur von Wrtern und Wortschtzen: Lex-
mining the relationships between the lexical meaning of icology: An international handbook on the nature
words to keep the situational context identical. and structure of words and vocabularies (Vol. 1, pp.
498507). Berlin: De Gruyter.
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