Antonymy

a semantic study that will give information about antonyms

1. Antonyms Presented by: Barozh S. Ghadhban January: 2015

2. Antonyms old young fast slow good bad Antonyms are two opposite gradable words and they have an intermediate territory between them (Saeed,J.I,2003:67). Also they move in opposite direction along a particular scale (cowie,2009:38)

3. Ex : The 3 rd electricity fan is near, 2 nd one is nearer and 1 st one is nearest. Ex : The 4 th electricity fan is far but 5 th is farer 1 st 3 rd 5 th 4 th 2 nd Ex : The 5 th person is big, 6 th is bigger and 7 th is biggest. Ex : The 3 rd person is small, 2 nd is smaller and 1 st smallest. 1st 2nd 3rd 4th 5th 6th 7th

4. Ex : A big rat A small elephant Note : sometimes pairs can not demonstrate the image or idea of antonym because of the nature of the context and the words meaning Ex : A thick A4 paper A thin book

5. Note : antonyms usually depend on the meaning of Context, how words associate with each other. Ex : old young / new How old is she? How young is she? The newspaper is old. The newspaper is new

6. Exact measurement Immeasurable

7. Polars are adjectives that can be combined with expression of measurement. These adjectives have two characteristics, first, they are related to size. Second, their meanings are very much dependent on the topics they are associated with. Measures : Meters kilos Decibel Hertz

8. Note : A characteristic of polars is that in some pairs one term is more basic and natural to be used.(saeed,J.I,2003:67) Ex : The wall is seven meters high. (But not: The wall is two meters low) Ex : The boy is two meters tall. (But not: The child one meter short) 1 meter tall 2 meters tall 7 meters high 2 meters high

9. Non- polars are adjectives that can not be combined with exact measure expressions. Ex : The young boy is 80 Kg. fat. The man is 50 Kg. thin Ex : The young boy is rather fat. The man is very thin.

10. References Cowie , A. P., (2009), Semantics, Oxford: Oxford university press. Kreidler , Ch. W., (2002), Introducing English Semantics, Taylor and Francis: e-library. Saeed , John I. (2003). Semantics . Oxford: Blackwell Publishers .