Types of lexical antonyms. What are antonyms: examples of words

Antonyms are words that differ in sound and have opposite meanings: lie - truth, evil - good, remain silent - speak. Examples of antonyms show that they refer to the same part of speech.

Antonymy in the Russian language is represented much narrower than synonymy. This is explained by the fact that only words that are correlated qualitatively (good - bad, native - alien, smart - stupid, thick - sparse, high - low), temporal (day - night, early - late), quantitative (single - multiple, many - few), spatial (spacious - cramped, large - small, wide - narrow, high - low) characteristics.

There are antonymous pairs denoting the names of states and actions. Examples of antonyms of this kind: rejoice - grieve, cry - laugh.

Types and examples of antonyms in Russian

Antonyms according to their structure are divided into multi-rooted (morning - evening) and single-rooted (come in - go out). The opposite meaning of antonyms with the same root is caused by prefixes. However, it should be remembered that adding prefixes to adverbs without-, Not- in most cases, gives them the meaning of a weakened opposite (tall - short), so the contrast of their meanings turns out to be “muted” (short - this does not mean “low”). Based on this, not all prefix formations can be classified as antonyms, but only those that are the extreme points of the lexical paradigm: strong - powerless, harmful - harmless, successful - unsuccessful.

Antonyms, as well as synonyms, are in close connection with polysemy: empty - serious (conversation); empty - full (cup); empty - expressive (look); empty - meaningful (story). Examples of antonyms show that different meanings of the word "empty" are included in different antonymic pairs. Unambiguous words, as well as words with specific meanings (iamb, pencil, desk, notebook, etc.) cannot have antonyms.

Among antonyms, there is also the phenomenon of enantiosemy - this is the development of mutually exclusive, opposite meanings of some polysemantic words: carry (into the room, bring) - carry (from the room, take away); abandoned (phrase just spoken) - abandoned (abandoned, forgotten). The meaning in such cases is clarified in context. Enantiosemy is often the cause of ambiguity in certain expressions. Examples of antonyms of this kind: he listened to the report; the director looked at these lines.

Contextual antonyms are words that are contrasted in a specific context: moonlight - sunlight; not a mother, but a daughter; one day - a whole life; wolves are sheep. The polarity of the meanings of such words is not fixed in the language, and their opposition is an individual author’s decision. In such cases, the writer identifies the opposing qualities of various concepts and contrasts them in speech. However, such pairs of words are not antonyms.

An important semantic relationship of lexical units is their opposition (antonymy). In the philosophical encyclopedia, opposition is understood as “one of the types of relations established as a result of” comparison of two objects <...> according to the chosen (or given) basis of comparison (attribute)” [Philosophical Encyclopedia. T.4. M., 1967, S. 182.]

Antonymy– a type of semantic relations of lexical units that have opposite meanings.

Antonymy is a relatively simple relation in vocabulary for several reasons:

1. Simple groupings, because In total, two words enter into antonymic relationships. If a word has several meanings, it can appear in several antonymic pairs, for example, speak"express orally your thoughts" - write“express your thoughts in writing”; speak“to express thoughts in a normal voice” - scream“expressing thoughts too loudly.” 2. Words are contrasted only by significative meaning.

The differential sign of antonymy is the presence of seme "Not", which is part of one of the members of the pair. Antonym containing seme "Not", includes in its meaning the entire content of another antonym: hungry"hungry" - well-fed"not hungry."

Antonymy is the naming of opposites within one entity. The logical model of opposition is realized in language as antonymy only in those words that denote quality, the opposite direction of actions, states, characteristics, and in a small number of words with the meaning of spatial and temporal coordinates. Antonyms name opposite specific concepts within the same generic: cold/hot- tactile sensations, light/dark- color. In the meaning of antonyms, this is expressed in the fact that the members of an antonymic pair belong to the same part of speech and have a significant commonality of meaning, a common set of semantic components. This commonality forms the basis of the opposition. From a semantic point of view, antonyms have the same type of meaning: a common integral feature (features) and a differential feature (features), according to which they are extremely opposed to each other, for example, big"significant in size" small"insignificant in magnitude."

Like synonyms, antonyms enter into contrasting distribution and equipollent opposition. Antonyms have both general and individual compatibility: early winter - early summer, cold winter - cold summer, warm winter - warm summer, but severe winter - hot summer. The meanings of antonyms, with the commonality of an integral feature, have a mutually negating character: young - old, in - out.In antonyms, difference prevails over similarity. For example, speak - remain silent. The general part is “to produce speech sounds with the voice.” At " speak"it is thought to be present, with a + sign, with " keep silent» – absent, with the sign –.

Antonyms can always be established only within the framework of a single meaning. These limits can be determined in various ways. Thus, the scope of antonymy can be delimited by a general concept under which two antonyms are subsumed. For example, in relation to understanding hand « left" And " right" will be antonyms, but in relation to the concept case these words are not antonyms (possibly just cause And left job).

In relation to space lexical units top - bottom enter into antonymic relationships, but their opposite does not exist within the framework of the concept “ spiritual qualities", cf. the height of nobility, the height of stupidity, but impossible the bottom of bliss.

The scope of antonymy can be determined in another way - through combination with other words: “ fresh» – « warm"(evening, morning, night); " fresh» – old(newspaper, magazine); " fresh» – salty(cucumber, mushrooms).

Antonymy as a semantic category can be represented as a field, the center of which is the opposition of the usual lexical units of the same part of speech, while the periphery consists of phenomena adjacent to lexical antonymy.

The antonymy of syntactic constructions, word-formation antonymy ( warm(noun) – warm – warm(adverb)- warm up), interparticular antonymy ( this person performs water procedures withhot water is cold for himharmful ).

A peripheral type of antonymy is also represented by contextual (speech antonyms): INyours looking for featuresother (M. Lermontov).

A special unproductive type of antonymy is intraword antonymy - enantheosemy.

Enantiosemy- opposite meanings of the same word.

The formal expression for enantiosemy is the contexts of use of the word in its opposite meanings: make a special reservation"make a reservation" and accidentally misspoke"to make a mistake" maybe“probably, apparently, maybe” and maybe“definitely, definitely.” Researchers also identify speech enantiosemy, when a word takes on the opposite meaning due to ironic intonation: What a handsome guy!(about a person who is ugly in appearance).

Linguistic antonymy and antonymization of units in speech

Language antonyms are characterized by systemic relationships, stable belonging to a certain lexical-grammatical paradigm, regularity of reproduction in the same syntagmatic conditions, fixedness in the vocabulary, relatively stable stylistic affiliation and stylistic essence. For example, cheerful - boring, closed - open.

Words contrasted in the significative part of the meaning, in which the sign of opposition is always thought of by the linguistic community as a whole, are antonyms: for example, day - night, up - down, big - small.

Experimental studies have proven the possibility of individual awareness of antonymy.

Researchers have noted some relationship between what phenomena are perceived as opposite and the professional, social, and ethnographic characteristics of the team.

“In children aged three to four years, words form a kind of opposite uncle And aunt, hand And leg, in older adults the irrefutable opposites are basement And attic, Sun And rain. For a person accustomed to mixed geographical relief, the most natural contrast mountain– plain, but for a mountaineer who has never seen the plains, the opposite turns out to be mountain And basin...it is not without reason to assume that in relation to the word whole, glass cutter will consider the word opposite broken, tailor ripped open or torn..." [Gritskat I. About antonyms // Collection of philology and linguistics. No. 4-5. Novi Sad, 1961-1962].

Speech antonyms (contextual)- these are words that in ordinary use do not express opposite meanings, do not have the sign of regular reproducibility and are not reflected in dictionaries, remaining a fact of speech.

Speech antonyms are semantically heterogeneous lexical units. They differ in some seme that is included in the meaning of only one of the members of the pair. For example: give - take away, antonym meaning take away from the meaning of the word give distinguishes the component “to take something by force.”

Pairs of words in figurative meaning in a certain context they can also express the opposite meaning and be speech antonyms. For example: "I was drinkingsagebrush Andhoney , - not a fresh drink..."(N. Rylenkov).

Some researchers include stylistically diverse, multi-temporal antonyms as speech antonyms, since they form an approximate opposite. For example: get married - get married(colloquial), spirit - flesh(obsolete)

Speech antonyms can be either different-rooted or single-rooted. For example , We didn’t have love, only lovelessness. In our team we are like wolves, and the rest are sheep.

Thus, in the work “Lexical antonyms and transformations with them” [Problems of structural linguistics. 1972. M., 1973. S. 329-338]. Yu.D. Apresyan, based on a semantic analysis of antonymic relations, identifies three types of antonyms. Type Anti1 is characterized by the semantic relationship “start” - “stop”. And since stop R means “to start not R” (stop working means “to start not working”), then this type of antonymy can be represented as a formula: from two antonyms X And YY=Anti(X)=»X Not".

This type of antonymy is widely represented by prefixed verbs (pour in - pour out, run up - run away, surge - subside, move in - move away, stick - fall behind, fall in love - fall out of love etc.), less common among adjectives (introductory - final, cheerful - sad, cute - disgusting, beautiful - ugly etc.) and nouns (pleasure - suffering, prosperity - decline, prefix - postfix etc.).

Yu.D. Apresyan classifies the last two adjectives as Anti1 based on this disclosure of their meanings: beautiful -“rarely beautiful”, and ugly -"rarely ugly." However, if we consider that between beautiful - ugly antonymy type Anti2, then there is hardly any reason to classify adjectives beautiful – ugly to type Anti1. The presence of an indicator of the quantity of the attribute (“rarely”, “to a high degree”, “very”) in the meanings of these words does not change anything in the essence of their semantic relationships.

Type Anti2 includes antonyms whose semantic relations are expressed by the formula "R" -"Not R", or Anti(X)="Not X","those. the entire interpretation of the original word is negated<...>, and not part of the interpretation, like Anti1.”

This type is represented by words of different parts of speech: nouns (presence - absence, peace - movement, identity - difference, co-religionist - non-religionist etc.), adjectives (alive - dead, healthy - sick, true - false, open - closed, drunk - sober, good - bad etc.), verbs (justify - deceive (trust), hit - miss, accept - reject (project), be present - absent, allow - prohibit, sleep - stay awake etc.).

Type Anti3 represented by the semantic distinction “more” – “less”, for example: big =“more than normal” - small="less than normal" This type of antonymy is very typical for adjectives - dimensional (high - low, long - short, wide - narrow etc.), denoting number or quantity (thick - sparse (hair), dense - sparse (wattle fence), dense - sparse (population), distances (near – far, close – far), intensity of different indicators (fast - slow, heavy - light, bright - dull, expensive - cheap, strong - weak), as well as semantically correlative nouns, verbs, and adverbs.

The most common classifications of antonyms are based on their structural and semantic relationships in pairs.

Semantic classification of antonyms based on the type of opposition they express. There are contrarian, complementary, vector antonymy.

Contrary and complementary antonymy are based on two different types of opposition.

Contrary Opposite is expressed by species concepts, between which a third, middle concept is possible: young – middle-aged (elderly) – old.

Complementary Opposite is represented by species concepts that complement each other in such a way that no third, middle concept is possible between them: true - false, life - death, healthy - sick.

Vector opposite noted in species pairs indicating multidirectional action: come - go.

The scale of oppositions is represented here by only two opposite members, complementing each other to the whole. The negation of one of these antonyms gives the meaning of the other, since there is no middle term between them, no gradual transitions: Not observe- Means violate, Not sighted Means blind, Not married Means idle.

1) Antonyms expressing contrarian (qualitative) opposite. These include, first of all, qualitative adjectives that establish gradual relationships, giving an idea of ​​a gradual change in quality (property, characteristic) ): brilliant – talented – gifted (outstanding) – average abilities – mediocre (ordinary) – mediocre.

Antonyms expressing extreme manifestations of quality are in symmetrical relationships, at the same semantic distance from the starting point: cold – cool – (normal temperature) – warm – hot. In a number of gradual paradigms, the middle term may not have a special expression, but is always implied as some starting point of the opposite: glory - Oh - shame. Qualitative adjectives with prefixes not-, without- (without-) are antonyms to the original words if they represent extreme, extreme members of the antonymic paradigm: literate (semi-literate) illiterate, profitable (less profitable) unprofitable.

This class also includes names of spatial and temporal coordinates: upper – (middle) – lower, the day before yesterday – (yesterday) – today – (tomorrow) – the day after tomorrow.

2) Antonyms expressing complementary opposite. This group includes a relatively small number of antonyms. The scale of opposition in the paradigm of these antonyms is represented by only two members, complementing each other to the whole: wet – dry, voluntary – forced, permanent – ​​temporary. Each of the antonyms is characterized by its positive content, in contrast to the pairs young– middle-aged, where the second word is indefinite in its content: middle-aged– “middle-aged”, “elderly”, “old”, such paradigms are not antonymous.

3) Antonyms expressing vector opposite. The meaning of vector opposite direction is a widespread phenomenon in vocabulary. This group primarily includes verbs denoting oppositely directed movements and actions: drive in - drive out, crawl in - crawl out, pour in - pour out, tie - untie. In addition to verbs, vector opposition is represented by nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions: sunrise - sunset, illness - recovery, supporter - opponent, offensive - defensive, up - down, forward - back, in - from, to - from.

Some researchers do not distinguish vector opposition into a separate group and consider it within the framework of contrarian opposition.

Structural types of antonyms.

Structural classification based on the opposition of the formal organization of antonyms. Antonyms are divided into multi-rooted (short - long, everyone - no one) and about bottom-rooted, distinguished by prefixes with opposite meanings ( come - go, scientific - anti-scientific), as well as intraword, in the presence of opposite meanings in a polysemantic word.

Most antonyms of different parts of speech in Russian refer to multi-rooted: smart - stupid, truth - lies, early - late, love - hate, before - after etc.

U cognate antonyms meaning opposite is the result of joining to one word

a) antonymic prefixes: at walk -at walk,V village –You village. This subgroup is most fully represented by prefixed verbs and verbal nouns: V drive –You drive,for knit –ra tie,with take -once pick upunder salt -re salt,for gluing –races gluing,at move –at move,under execution andlane Fulfillment etc.:

b) attaching a prefix to one member of the pair, giving the word the opposite meaning: democratic –anti democratic, friend -Not Friend. This subgroup is formed by adjectives and nouns: scientific –anti scientific, legal -against legal, ideological -without polite, polite -Not politeness, strength -demon strength etc.

Enantiosemy refers to a special type of intraword antonymy, since LSVs are opposed within one word: borrow(to someone) - borrow(from someone)

In a text, antonyms can perform a number of functions:

The contrast, for example, The value of a person is not determined byabsence shortcomings, andavailability merits (G.A. Medynsky); Yourich, I'm verypoor ...(A.S. Pushkin).

Mutual exclusion: There is nothing to philosophize there,harmful this orhealthy (P.P. Chekhov).

Alternation, a sequence of facts, of which one cannot be simultaneously with the other, but is possible after the other: He isstewed candle, then againlit up her(A.P. Chekhov).

Coverage of the entire class of objects, the entire phenomenon, quality, property, divided into opposites:And, having made an effort, Sintsov conscientiously repeated everything from beginning to end(K.M. Simonov).

Transformation of one opposite into another, contradiction: The armored train, having difficulty making its way along the tracks, exitshead echelons that have now becometail , Vtail , which have now becomehead ones (V.S. Ivanov).

Antonymy serves as a means of creating an antithesis - a stylistic figure of contrast, a sharp opposition of concepts, positions, images, states. For example, You andwretched , you andabundant , Mother Rus'...

An oxymoron is a combination of contrasting lexical units. For example, Bad - good Human.

1. Multi-rooted- these are actually lexical antonyms, in which the opposite is expressed by the semantics of the entire word: wealth - poverty, light - extinguish. Prevail in quantitative terms.

2. Single-rooted- lexico-grammatical antonyms, in which the opposite meaning is expressed through various prefixes, less often suffixes, which are also capable of entering into antonymic relationships: invest - lay out, close - open, leave - come, mediocre - gifted. Legal clichés can be antonyms: provision of assistance - failure to provide assistance, grievous bodily injury - minor bodily injury, mild punishment - severe punishment. Based on antonymous relations, the following terms are formed: purchase and sale.

II. According to semantic structure.

1. Gradual(contrary, opposite) - antonyms that allow the inclusion of a middle member, an intermediate concept: white - (gray) - black; past - (present) - future. This intermediate concept is a word with a neutral meaning, from which the positive and negative members of the paradigm are measured: beloved - (indifferent) - hated.

2. Non-gradual(contradictory, contradictory) - antonyms denoting the opposition of objects, features, processes, relationships, the presence of one of which excludes the existence of the other, there is no intermediate concept: life - death, sick - healthy.

Some scientists identify another type of antonyms - antonyms-enantiosemes. Enantiosemy (Greek: “opposite” + “sign”) - intraword antonymy, the essence of which is that the same lexical unit can express opposite meanings in a certain situation or context: blow out the candle (extinguish it) - blow out the blast furnace (light it); break a cup (split) - create a garden (create); chop wood (chop) - chop a house (build). Enantiosemy often causes ambiguity and may involve speech error: After a severe attack, the patient began move away (is the patient better or worse?) ; Students listened to lecture(did you listen carefully or didn’t listen at all?) ; Editor looked through these lines(did you read it briefly or didn’t you see it?).

III. By use in speech.

1. General language- reflect the phenomena of reality: good - bad; top - bottom; speak - remain silent.

2. Contextual(author's) - words contrasted in a certain context: “Wolves And sheep” (Krylov) , They got together. Wave And stone, poetry and prose, ice And flame not so different from each other(Pushkin). The polarity of these words is not fixed in dictionaries; their opposition is of an individual author's nature.

The use of antonymy by lawyers is possible only in oral monologue speech; it is striking means of expression; Antonymy is not typical for procedural acts.

In addition to synonyms and homonyms, polysemy is associated antonymy. Lexical antonyms(from the Greek Anti - against, Onyma - name) - these are words with opposite meanings. Antonymy is based on the opposition of correlative concepts: friend - enemy, bitter - sweet, easy - difficult, etc.

An antonymous series consists of words belonging to the same part of speech. Both significant parts of speech (nouns, verbs, adjectives, etc.) and auxiliary parts (for example, prepositions: in - from, over - under, with - without, etc.) enter into antonymic relations. However, only those words whose lexical meaning has the following shades of quality:
1) size, color, taste: large - small, white - black, heavy - light;
2) emotional state: love - hate;
3) emotional action: to be upset - to be happy.

Also, words that denote temporal and spatial relationships enter into antonymic connections:
yesterday - today, ahead - behind, there - here, east - west, north - south, etc.

Words with a concrete object meaning, used in a literal rather than figurative meaning (camel, house, standing, etc.), are unable to have antonyms. Proper names, numerals, and most pronouns do not have antonyms. According to their structure, antonyms are divided into two main groups:
1) Cognate antonyms:
Luck - failure; Active - inactive; Coming - leaving, etc.
2) Different root antonyms:
Poverty is luxury; Active - passive; To accuse is to defend; Today - tomorrow, etc.

Antonymy is closely related to polysemy and synonymy. A polysemantic word can be included in different antonymic series:

In modern Russian there are also contextual antonyms, which act in antonymic relations only in a certain context. Antonyms of this type can have different grammatical forms, belonging to the same part of speech, or refer to different parts speeches, while differing stylistically. These stylistic differences are not reflected in dictionaries, for example:
...I'm stupid, and you're smart, alive, and I'm dumbfounded (M. Tsvetaeva)
Antonymy is at the core oxymoron- combinations of words (most often an adjective and a noun) that are opposite in meaning, for example:
The fresh air smelled of the bitter sweetness of the autumn morning (I. Bunin) And it’s not I who have gone crazy, but you turn out to be a smart fool (M. Sholokhov)

The functional use and expressive capabilities of antonyms are varied. Antonyms are most often used in the text in pairs, expressing a wide variety of shades of meaning and meaning - comparison, contrast, etc. For example:
Words can cry and laugh,
Command, pray and conjure (B. Pasternak)

For the same purposes, antonyms are used in many proverbs and sayings of Russian folklore: Where is grief for the wise, and joy for the fool; A long rope is good, but a short speech; Don’t run away from good things, and don’t do bad things. Antithesis (that is, contextual opposition) is created not only with the help of synonyms, but also with the help of antonyms. For example, antonyms are used in the titles of literary works, indicating that the structural basis of the work is opposition - antithesis in the broad sense of the word, woven into the fabric of the narrative:
The epic novel “War and Peace” by L. N. Tolstoy;
The novel “The Living and the Dead” by K. M. Simonov;
The story “Days and Nights” by K. M. Simonov.

One of the striking manifestations of systemic relations in vocabulary is correlative opposition based on the most general and most significant semantic feature for their meaning. Such words are called lexical antonyms.

The opposition is called correlative because only words that are in the same lexical and grammatical paradigm and denote logically compatible concepts enter into such relationships. Their comparison is based on the same common feature. Thus, words that characterize various kinds of qualitative features are semantically correlative, for example: beauty, color, taste (beautiful - ugly, light - dark, bitter - sweet); emotions (love - hate, fun - sadness); concepts of space, time (up - down, north - south, today - tomorrow); action and state (close - open).

The correlation of the most general signs of opposition is often supplemented by private, specific, semantically no less significant signs.

Such meanings are called opposite because, according to the laws of logic, they mutually exclude each other. For example, an object cannot be deep and shallow, heavy and light at the same time. Between them, a language often contains lexical units that have a certain average semantically neutral meaning:

large - medium - small

large - medium - small.

The content of the concept of “antonym” has recently been significantly expanded. Thus, until recently, only words containing an indication of quality in their meaning were considered antonyms. Modern researchers also see antonymy in words belonging to the same part of speech, denoting different kinds of feelings, action, state, evaluation, spatial and temporal relationships, that is, a broad understanding of antonymy is increasingly strengthened.

Types of antonyms by structure.

According to their structure, antonyms are divided into 2 main groups: single-root and multi-root.

Cognate antonyms arise as a result of word-formation processes, therefore they are also called lexico-grammatical (lexical-word-formation). They are formed as a result of attaching prefixes with the opposite meaning:

in- - from-; for- - from-; us-; over- - under- ...

Word-forming elements of an antonymic nature include the first parts difficult words type light- - heavy-, micro- - macro-, mono- - poly-...

A special group is formed by words that have intrasemantic antonymy, or enanthosemia, which appears as a result of the polysemy of the word. Enanthosemy is observed, for example, in the words: carry (here, into the house) - “bring” and carry (from here, from home) - “carry away”; make a mistake (intentionally) - “make a reservation” (on purpose) and make a mistake (accidentally) - “make a mistake”, etc. 1

Among antonyms of different roots, modern researchers distinguish the so-called Converse antonyms. These include words that express the relation of opposition in both the original and modified statements, but not in the usual, direct order, but in the reverse order: Peter buys a house from Sergei - Sergei sells the house to Peter.

The semantics of opposites in both antonyms with different roots and those with the same root can reveal concepts of different degrees, measures of the same quality, property:

expensive - cheap; deep - shallow; young - old.

The common, most essential feature of each group is the opposition of their meanings, which relate to the same series of objective reality.

Understanding the structural and semantic capabilities of antonymic oppositions allows you to use language antonyms in speech most correctly and rationally, and choose the most significant of them in an informative way. And this is important characteristic feature creative use of the lexical wealth of the Russian language.

_________________________________

1 See: Bulakhovsky L.A. Introduction to linguistics. p.74; Vinogradov V.V. Basic types of lexical meanings of a word. p.9; him. On the processes of development and destruction of homonymy in the circle of correlative Russianisms and ancient Slavicisms // Studia slavica. Budapest. 1969. T.12.