Antonym
In
lexical semantics,
opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs
male : female,
long : short,
up : down, and
precede : follow. The notion of incompatibility here refers to fact that one word in an opposite pair
entails that it is not the other pair member. For example, something that is
long entails that it is not
short. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members in a set of opposites. The relationship between opposites is known as
opposition. A member of a pair of opposites can generally be determined by the question
What is the opposite of X ?
The term
antonym (and the related
antonymy) has also been commonly used as a term that is synonymous with
opposite; however, the term also has other more restricted meanings. One usage has
antonym referring to both gradable opposites, such as
long : short, and (non-gradable) complementary opposites, such as
male : female, while opposites of the types
up : down and
precede : follow are excluded from the definition. A third usage (particularly that of the influential
Lyons 1968, 1977) defines the term
antonym as referring to only gradable opposites (the
long : short type) while the other types are referred to with different terms. Therefore, as
Crystal (2003) warns, the terms
antonymy and
antonym should be regarded with care. In this article, the usage of Lyons (1963, 1977) and Cruse (1986, 2004) will be followed where
antonym is restricted to gradable opposites and
opposite is used as the general term referring to any of the subtypes discussed below.
For the purposes of this article (see introduction),
antonyms, from the
Greek anti ("opposite") and
onoma ("name") are gradable opposites. Gradable opposites lie at opposite ends of a continuous spectrum of meanings; examples are
hot and
cold,
slow and
fast, and
fat and
skinny. Words may have several different antonyms, depending on the meaning: both
long and
tall can be antonyms of
short.
Opposites are interestingly simultaneously different and similar in meaning, Typically, they differ in only one dimension of meaning, but are similar in most other respects, including similarity in grammar and positions of semantic abnormality. Additionally, not all words have an opposite. Some words are non-opposable. For example, the word platypus has no word that stands in ops3osition to it (hence, the un answerability of What is the opposite of platypus?). The main reason is that animal or plant species have no binary opposites (other than possible gender opposites such as lion/lioness, etc.). Other, words are opposable but have an accidental gap in a given language's lexicon. For example, the word devout lacks a lexical opposite, but it is fairly easy to conceptualize a parameter of devoutness where devout lies at the positive pole with a missing member at the negative pole.
Opposites may be viewed as a special type of incompatibility. Words that are incompatible create the following type of entailment (where X is a given word and Visa different word incompatible with word
sentence A is X entails sentence A is not Y
An example of an incompatible pair of words is cat : dog :
It's a cat entails It's not a dog
This incompatibility is also found in the opposite pairs fast: slow and stationary : moving, as can be seen below :
It's fast entails It's hot slow
It's stationary entails It's not moving
Complementaries
Complementary opposites are pairs that express absolute opposites, like mortal and immortal.
• interactives
• satis/actives
• counteractives
Synonyms
Synonyms are different words (or sometimes phrases) with identical or very similar meanings. Words that are synonyms are said to be
synonymous, and the state of being a synonym is called
synonymy. The word comes from
Ancient Greek syn (
σύν) ("with") and
onoma (
ὄνομα) ("name"). The words
car and
automobile are synonyms. Similarly, if we talk about a
long time or an
extended time,
long and
extended become synonyms. In the figurative sense, two words are often said to be synonymous if they have the same connotation:
Synonyms can be any
part of speech (e.g.
nouns,
verbs,
adjectives,
adverbs or
prepositions), as long as both members of the pair are the same part of speech. More examples of English synonyms are:
- student and pupil (noun)
- petty crime and misdemeanor (noun)
- buy and purchase (verb)
- sick and ill (adjective)
- quickly and speedily (adverb)
- on and upon (preposition)
Note that synonyms are defined with respect to certain senses of words; for instance,
pupil as the
"aperture in the iris of the eye" is not synonymous with
student. Similarly,
he expired means the same as
he died, yet
my passport has expired cannot be replaced by
my passport has died.
In English many synonyms evolved from a mixture of Norman French and English words, often with some words associated with the Saxon countryside (
"folk",
"freedom") and synonyms with the Norman nobility (
"people",
"liberty").
Some
lexicographers claim that no synonyms have exactly the same meaning (in all contexts or social levels of language) because
etymology,
orthography,
phonic qualities, ambiguous meanings, usage, etc. make them unique. Different words that are similar in meaning usually differ for a reason:
feline is more formal than
cat;
long and
extended are only synonyms in one usage and not in others (for example, a
long arm is not the same as an
extended arm). Synonyms are also a source of
euphemisms.
The purpose of a
thesaurus is to offer the user a listing of similar or related words; these are often, but not always, synonyms.
In general, we can break synonymy down into three categories, varying by degree.
§ Absolute synonymy
Two words word are defined as being absolutely synonymous if they are equinormal for all contexts. This means that for every context where Word A is perfectly acceptable, Word B is as well. Similarly, whenever Word A seems a bit strange or out of place, Word B must be equally out of place. In practice, almost no such pairs exist in normal language. Here are some examples that highlight the difficulty in finding words which are absolutely synonymous:
Little Billy was so brave at the dentist's today.
Little Billy was so courageous at the dentist's today
Calm : placid
She was quite calm just a few minutes ago.
She was quite placid just a few minutes ago.
Inevitably it seems, we can find contexts where one of the words seems slightly inappropriate or slightly out of place, though JudyT points out that furze and gorse may as bolutely synonymous. In general, Absolute Synonymy is only really useful as a conceptual reference
§ Propositional Synonymy
Two words are propositionally synonymous if they can be used in any truth functional expression and not change the value of the sentence.
Sally took the can from the box.
Sally took the tin from the box.
Alex plays the violin
Alex plays the fiddle.
In a sentence like "Alex plays the fiddle in the orchestra" the use of 'fiddle' (a word which in this context typically is only used by professionals) preserves the truth value for the sentence and so is appropriate for propositional synonymy.
Differences in propositional synonymy typically are either of style, field of discourse, or in expressive meaning. In "the patient broke his shin" and "the patient broke his fibula", the difference comes from the field of discourse.
§ Near Synonymy
Essentially every synonymous word pairing that is neither of the two above. While the distinction between propositional synonymy and near synonymy is clear at least in theory, the line between near synonymy and non-synonymy is very difficult to draw formally. Fortunately, speakers seem to know intuitively whether terms are synonymous, even though we cannot formulate a specific definition.
