Antonyms. Antonyms - what are they? Semantic functions of antonyms

In meaning, but words belonging to the same part of speech. They have different spellings and sounds. It is very easy to determine the meaning of one antonym through another; it is enough to give it the form of negation. For example, a direct antonym for the word talking is not being silent, sad is not cheerful and so on. In this article we will take a closer look at the concept of “antonyms” and find out their types.

General information

Due to the richness of the Russian language, there are many nuances and subtleties in any part of speech. It is not without reason that in schools and some higher education institutions educational institutions Numerous textbooks on linguistics are studied.

  1. It is noteworthy that due to polysemy, antonyms of the same word differ in different contexts. For example: old boar - young boar, old car - new car, old cheese - fresh cheese and so on.
  2. Not every lexical unit has antonyms. For example, words do not have them sew, institute, book and so on.
  3. The main feature is the opposition of words that can mean:
  • signs of an object ( smart - stupid, evil - kind);
  • social and natural phenomena (talent - mediocrity, heat - cold);
  • states and actions ( disassemble - collect, forget - remember).

Types of antonyms

They vary in structure.

  • Single-root antonyms are words that are opposite in meaning, but have the same root. For example: love - dislike, progress - regression. They are formed by attaching prefixes (not-, without/s-, re-, de-, and so on).
  • Different-root antonyms are words that are polar in meaning and have different roots. For example: big - small, black - white.

In turn, the first type is also divided into: antonyms-euphemisms (loyally express the opposite, difference, for example: significant - insignificant) and enantiosemes (express opposition with the same word, for example: view(in the sense of seeing) and view(in the sense of skipping).

Another group is also distinguished: contextual antonyms are words that differ in meaning only in a specific case. For example, in the author's performance: she had not the eyes- A eyes.

The meaning of antonyms is as follows.

  • Opposite: they denote the polarity of actions, phenomena or signs. As a rule, between such antonyms you can put a word with a neutral meaning: joy- apathy - sad, positive- indifference - negative.
  • Vector: they denote multidirectional actions: put on - take off, open - close.
  • Contradictory: indicate the polarity of objects, phenomena and signs, each of which excludes the other. It is impossible to put a neutral word between them: right left.

Functions of antonyms

In a sentence, antonyms play a stylistic role and are used to make speech more expressive. They are often used as an antithesis (opposition, contrast). Example: “He who was nobody will become everything.” Sometimes antonyms form an oxymoron (combining the incompatible). Example: "Hot Snow", "Living Corpse".

Antonyms are widely used not only in the titles of works, but also in proverbs and sayings.

Semantic functions of antonyms.

Stylistic functions of antonyms.

Using antonyms in speech.

Dictionaries of antonyms.

Objects and phenomena of the world around us are among themselves not only in relations of similarity (lexical synonymy), but also in relations of difference or opposition.

Words with opposite meanings are called antonyms(from Greek anti– “against” and onyma- "Name"). Words with opposite lexical meanings reveal stable semantic connections in the language, forming antonymic pairs (paradigms): life death,war - peace,big small, new – old,enter - exit, present - future and etc.

A specific feature of the antonymic paradigm (pair) is its pairing: it always consists of positive and negative members. Antonyms, as one of the manifestations of the lexical paradigmatics of a language, are groups of words connected by both similarities and differences in characteristics. The similarity lies in the fact that the meanings of antonyms are based on lies the most common and essential feature for them eg: weight ( light heavy), mind ( smart - stupid), taste ( bitter - sweet), color ( black White), direction of movement ( rise - fall, enter - exit), correspondence to reality ( true False) etc.

The differences among antonyms reach an extreme degree, turning into opposites. Antonymy represents opposites within one entity(opposite definitions of one essence, one object, attribute, phenomenon). This extreme opposing manifestations of one essence, their polar definitions. Antonyms act as signs of a unity divided into opposites (for example, a person’s height is characterized vertically from low to high, the volumes (dimensions) of an object are determined on a horizontal plane from small to large, etc.).

Antonyms express the limit of manifestation of any quality, property, actions, for example, a person as a biological being may be or be in a state life, or of death; an item on the basis of “the time of its existence, the time from the moment of its manufacture” can be new or old(old trousers or new ).

Antonymic connections are not common to all words. Antonymy relations can only contain words whose semantics can express limit manifestations of something may have polar manifestations. Antonyms can be, first of all, words denoting characteristics, qualities or properties, since they can be contrasted as polar, opposite. It is no coincidence that antonymic relations most often connect adjectives and adverbs ( hot Cold,thick – thin,fast - slow, good - bad). Antonymic connections also develop in nouns denoting extreme coordinates(points, positions) on any reference scale ( day Night,life death). Verbs that name manifestations of feelings can also be antonyms ( to be sad - to be happy,love - hate) or oppositely directed actions ( come in - go out,assemble - disassemble).



Nouns with a specific meaning (not having the properties noted above) usually do not have antonyms ( pen, notebook, tram, lamp, table, wood, sand). But: ceiling - floor– these are antonyms, because express meanings equal to values paired with topbottom.

For a polysemantic word, different antonymic connections can be formed for each of its meanings (see the similar relationship between polysemy and synonymy), in other words, different LSVs of a polysemantic (polysemantic word) are capable of entering into antonymic relationships with in different words. Compare, for example, antonymous pairs of different LSV words thick: thick (“with weakened fluidity”) – liquid (thick sour cream - liquid sour cream) And thick (“consisting of many homogeneous objects located close to each other”) – rare (dense forest - sparse forest). Antonyms and synonyms of a polysemantic word can enter into synonymous and antonymic relationships with each other, cf.: easydifficult(antonyms) and difficultheavy(synonyms); hence the antonyms easyheavy(easy jobhard work And hard work), But: easy suitcaseheavy (Not * difficult) suitcase.

Words included in an antonymic pair can have both a common, coinciding compatibility, and an individual one. For example: day night , cold day -cold night,long day -long night,warm day - warm night.But: sunny, cloudy, gloomy day And lunar, starry, deep(time after 12 o'clock at night) night.



Antonymic opposition is usually expressed by a pair of lexical units (i.e. two units). But sometimes one antonym can be opposed by two semantically equivalent words: Friend enemy (foe ),nowhere everywhere (everywhere ). This antonymic variants.

Unlike synonymy, which expresses identity and similarity, antonymy expresses opposite b, which is philosophical category, characteristic of the objects of the world around us. Words with opposite meanings form pairs and entire microsystems of lexical units: new - old, war - peace, enter - exit, past - present - future.

Philosophical basis lexical antonymy constitute opposites within one entity. Anonymous points to the inextricable connection of opposites in a specific manifestation of a given entity. Logical basis antonymies form opposite species concepts, which represent the limit of manifestation of a quality, property or attribute defined by a generic concept (this is the general essence: easyheavy-"weight").

There are 2 types of opposites:

1. The opposite: between extreme species concepts there are intermediate members: cold – (room – warm) – hot.

2. Complementary: species concepts complement each other up to a generic concept, there is no intermediate, middle element: truth is false. It is necessary to distinguish from complementary opposites contradictory concepts: young – middle-aged , which are not antonyms, because do not form logical basis antonymy, because the second concept is not defined here.

One should also distinguish between linguistic and speech antonymy.

Words,forming antonyms: two logical models of opposition are realized in language as antonymy, denoting quality (adjectives), opposing directions of actions (verbs), states of attributes, properties, as well as words with the meaning of spatial and temporal coordinates: light heavy.

Do not form antonyms: words of specific semantics naming objects ( window, table, newspaper), numerals, proper names, some pronouns (for example, my yours, this that). Antonyms are often formed by qualitative adjectives ( young – old), correlative nouns ( youth - old age), correlative verbs ( to grow young - to grow old), some prepositions ( in – from, over – under, to – from, from – to), some pronouns ( everything is no one, everyone is nothing, one’s own is someone else’s).

Antonyms form similar semantic structures and differ in the opposition of opposite terms.

Antonymy is a categorical lexical-semantic relationship of opposite meanings expressed in different words(LSV), which have the function of opposition and other related functions in the text.

Antonymy is, like synonymy, an onomasiological category. Usually represented by a pair of lexical units or several words with opposite meanings.

All antonyms are characterized by logical relations of intersection of concepts, equipollent opposition and contrasting distribution.

Antonyms are words of the same part of speech, different in sound and spelling, having directly opposite lexical meanings, for example: “truth” - “lie”, “good” - “evil”, “speak” - “be silent”.

Types of antonyms:

1. Multi-rooted. This type of antonyms is the most representative. Opposite meanings belong to these words as a whole (for example, high - low, heat - cold, catch up - lag behind, etc.). Some prepositions are also contrasted as antonyms (for example, for and before (behind the closet - in front of the closet), in and from (into the room - from the room).

2. Single-rooted. For them, the meaning of the opposite is expressed not by the root parts of words, but by affixal morphemes. Antonymy arises from the opposition of prefixes (for example, pri- and u- (come - go), v- and s- (get in - get off), or as a result of the use of negative prefixes that give the word the opposite meaning (for example, literate - illiterate, tasty - tasteless, military - anti-war, revolution - counter-revolution, etc.).

3. Contextual (or contextual) antonyms are words that are not contrasted in meaning in the language and are antonyms only in the text: Mind and heart - ice and fire - these are the main things that distinguished this hero.

4. Enantiosemy is the opposite of the meaning of the same word. Sometimes it is not individual words that can be antonymous, but different meanings of one word (for example, the word priceless, meaning: 1. having a very high price (priceless treasures). 2. not having any price (bought for next to nothing, i.e. very cheap) .The word blessed, meaning: 1. in highest degree happy (blissful state). 2. stupid (earlier meaning of holy fool).

5. Proportional (having opposite actions: rise - fall, get fat - lose weight) and disproportionate (a certain action is opposed to inaction: leave - stay, light up - put out).

6. Linguistic (exist in the language system: high - low, right - left) and speech (formed in speech patterns: priceless - penny worth, beauty - swamp kikimara);



Functions of antonyms:

1. The main stylistic function of antonyms is a lexical means for constructing an antithesis. P: We both hate and we love by chance.

2. The opposite of antithesis is the use of antonyms with negation. It is used to emphasize the lack of a clearly defined quality in the item being described. P: She wasn’t pretty, she wasn’t ugly

3. Antonymy is the basis of an oxymoron (from the Greek oxymoron ‘witty-stupid’) - a stylistic figure that creates a new concept by combining words with contrasting meanings. P: The shadow of uncreated creatures sways in sleep. Like lotanium blades on an enamel wall (Bryusov).

4. Antonyms are used to emphasize the completeness of coverage of what is depicted - stringing together antonymic pairs. P: In the world there is good and evil, lies and truth, grief and joy.

Anaphrasis is the use of one of the antonyms, while another should be used: where, smart one, are you wandering from, head? (appeal to the donkey). Antonymous pairs must be composed logically.

Homonymy, types of homonyms. Paronyms. Paronomasia. Functions of homonyms and paronyms in speech.

Homonyms- these are words of the same part of speech, identical in sound and spelling, but different in lexical meaning, for example: boron - “a pine forest growing in a dry, elevated place” and boron - “a steel drill used in dentistry.”

Types of homonyms.

There are full and partial homonyms. Complete homonyms belong to the same part of speech and coincide in all forms, for example: key (from the apartment) and key (spring). And partial homonyms are consonant words, one of which entirely coincides with only part of the forms of another word, for example: tact (in the meaning of “play the last measure”) and tact (in the meaning of “rules of decency”). The word with the second meaning does not have a plural form.

Paronyms(from the Greek para “near, nearby” + onyma “name”) - words that are similar in sound, similar in pronunciation, lexico-grammatical affiliation and related roots, but have different meanings. Paronyms in most cases refer to one part of speech. For example: dress and put on, subscriber and subscription, wiser and wiser. Sometimes paronyms are also called false brothers.

The phenomenon of paronomasia (from the gr. para - near, onomazo - I call) lies in the sound similarity of words that have different morphological roots (cf.: bunks - sleds, pilot - boatswain, clarinet - cornet, injection - infection). As with paronymy, lexical pairs in paronomasia belong to the same part of speech and perform similar syntactic functions in a sentence. Such words may have the same prefixes, suffixes, endings, but their roots are always different. Apart from random phonetic similarity, the words in such lexical pairs have nothing in common; their subject-semantic relevance is completely different.

Paronomasia, unlike paronymy, is not a natural and regular phenomenon. And although the language has many phonetically similar words, comparing them as lexical pairs is the result of individual perception: one will see paronomasia in the pair circulation - type, another - in circulation - mirage, the third - in circulation - stained glass. However, paronymy and paronomasia are close in terms of the use of similar-sounding words in speech.

The use of homonyms and paronyms in speech

(Homonyms). Like polysemantic words, homonyms are used in mutually exclusive strong positions. This makes it possible to realize the main semantic function of homonyms - to differentiate words that are different in meaning and have the same sound envelope. Since these words are not connected in meaning and are not motivated, the power of their mutual exclusion in the text is much greater than. at the meanings (LSV) of a polysemantic word.

The contact use of homonyms in the text or even their “overlay”, complete “fusion” in one form realizes certain stylistic functions, being a means of creating a pun, a figurative collision of different meanings, emphasized expression: I am able to take a wife without a fortune, but I am not able to go into debt for her rags (P.); By paying your debt, you thereby fulfill it (Kozma Prutkov). The expressiveness of the slogan “Peace to the World” is emphasized by the use of homonyms.

(Paronyms)

Paronyms can be used in speech as a means of expressiveness.

Often, authors put paronyms side by side to show their semantic differences despite their apparent similarity: Any person, since he lives in society, is a humanitarian in the sense that he explains, corrects, evaluates his own and others’ practical and theoretical behavior in humanitarian categories (not necessarily unfortunately, humane) thinking. (V. Ilyin, A. Razumov); This is how it happens when trust is confused with gullibility. (Ya. Dymsky).

The collision of paronyms can be used to highlight these words, which enhances the meanings they express: Wrote a businesslike and practical letter to Valerian (L. Tolstoy).

So, the skillful use of paronyms helps to correctly and accurately express thoughts and reveals the great potential of the Russian language in conveying subtle shades of meaning.

(from the Greek anti - against, ónyma - name) - these are words with the opposite meaning when used in pairs. Those words enter into antonymic relationships which reveal from opposite sides correlated concepts associated with one circle of objects and phenomena. Words form antonymous pairs based on their lexical meaning. The same word, if it is polysemantic, can have several antonyms.

occur within all parts of speech, but the words of the antonymous pair must belong to the same part of speech.

The following do not enter into antonymic relationships:

– nouns with a specific meaning (house, book, school), proper names;

– numerals, most pronouns;

– words denoting gender (man and woman, son and daughter);

– words with different stylistic connotations;

- words with increasing or diminutive accents (hand - hands, house - house).

In their structure, antonyms are not homogeneous. Among them are:

– single-root antonyms: happiness - misfortune, open - close;

– antonyms with different roots: black - white, good - bad.

The phenomenon of antonymy is closely related to the polysemy of a word. Each meaning of a word can have its own antonyms. Yes, word fresh will have different antonymic pairs in different meanings: fresh wind - sultry wind, fresh bread - stale bread, fresh shirt - dirty shirt.

Antonymic relationships can also arise between different meanings of the same word. For example, to review means “to get acquainted with something, check, quickly examining, looking through, reading” and “to skip, not to notice, to miss.” The combination of opposite meanings in one word is called enantiosemy.

Depending on the distinctive features that words with opposite meanings have, two types of antonyms can be distinguished general language(or simply linguistic) And contextual speech(copyright or individual).

General language antonyms are regularly reproduced in speech and enshrined in the vocabulary (day - night, poor - rich).

Contextual speech antonyms- these are words that enter into antonymic relationships only in a certain context: Sing better with a goldfinch than with a nightingale.

The use of antonyms makes speech more vivid and expressive. Antonyms are used in colloquial and artistic speech, in many proverbs and sayings, in the titles of many literary works.

One of the stylistic figures is built on the sharp opposition of antonym words - antithesis(contrast) – characterization by comparing two opposing phenomena or signs: Long live the sun, may the darkness hide! (A.S. Pushkin). Writers often construct titles of works using this technique: “War and Peace” (L.N. Tolstoy), “Fathers and Sons” (I.S. Turgenev), “Fat and Thin” (A.P. Chekhov), etc. .

Another stylistic device that is based on a comparison of antonymic meanings is oxymoron, or oxymoron(Gr. oxymoron - lit. witty-stupid) - a figure of speech that combines logically incompatible concepts: a living corpse, dead souls, ringing silence.

Antonym dictionaries will help you find an antonym for a word.Antonym dictionarieslinguistic reference dictionaries, in which a description of antonyms is given. For example, in dictionary L.A. Vvedenskaya An interpretation of more than 1000 antonymic pairs is given (their synonymous correspondences are also taken into account), and contexts of use are given. A in the dictionary N.P. Kolesnikova Antonyms and paronyms are recorded. The book contains approximately 3,000 paronyms and more than 1,300 pairs of antonyms. There are no illustrations of the use of antonyms in the dictionary.

In addition to antonym dictionaries general type, there are also private dictionaries that record polar relations in some narrow areas of vocabulary. This includes, for example, dictionaries of antonyms-phraseological units, dictionaries of antonyms-dialecticisms, etc.

Let us once again pay attention to the most common examples of antonyms: good evil; good bad; friend - enemy; day Night; heat - cold; peace - war, quarrel; true False; success - failure; benefit - harm; rich - poor; difficult - easy; generous - stingy; thick – thin; hard – soft; brave - cowardly; White black; fast – slow; high Low; bitter - sweet; hot Cold; wet – dry; full - hungry; new - old; big small; laugh - cry; speak - remain silent; love - hate.

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) antonyms are divided into corresponding classes, the main of which are:

1) antonyms expressing qualitative opposition. They realize the opposite and reveal gradual (stepped) oppositions: “ easy"('simple, trivial') - "not difficult", "of average difficulty", "not easy" - " difficult" ('difficult'); Wed “easy” - “difficult”, “easy” - “difficulty”. In qualitative ones with the prefixes not-, without- are antonyms only if they represent extreme, extreme members antonymic paradigm: “cultural” - (“not quite cultural”) - “uncultured”; “strong” - (“weak”) - “powerless” (= “weak”). Contrasts like “tall” - “short” (cf. “low”) do not form antonyms. This can conditionally include the designations of the main time and spatial coordinates, revealing stepwise ones: “the day before yesterday”, “yesterday”, “today”, “tomorrow”, “the day after tomorrow”; Wed “lower”, (“middle”), “upper” (about the floor of the house).

2) Antonyms expressing complementarity (complementarity). The scale of opposition is represented by two opposite terms, complementing each other to the whole, so that one gives the value of the other: “not + true” = ‘false’; Wed “blind” - “sighted”, “wet” - “dry”, “observe” - “violate”, “together” - “apart”, etc.

3) Antonyms expressing the opposite direction of actions, characteristics and properties. This opposition in language is based on logically opposite concepts: “assemble” - “disassemble”, “ignite” - “extinguish”, “enter” - “exit”, “revolutionary” - “counter-revolutionary”, “folk” - “anti-people”.

According to their structure, antonyms are divided into multi-root ones (“good” - “bad”, “beginning” - “end”, “fast” - “slow”) and single-root ones (“enter” - “exit”, “cultural” - “uncultured” , “revolution” - “counter-revolution”). A special, unproductive variety of antonyms is formed by words that combine opposite meanings: “borrow” - 1) “to lend” and 2) “to borrow”, “probably” - 1) “maybe” and 2) “undoubtedly” , exactly'. This phenomenon is called intraword antonymy, or enantiosemy.

There is a narrower understanding of antonyms, for example, as only qualitative and only words of different roots, but this understanding of antonymy does not fully take into account all the possibilities for expressing opposites in language.

  • See the literature under the article.

L. A. Novikov.


Linguistic encyclopedic Dictionary. - M.: Soviet Encyclopedia. Ch. ed. V. N. Yartseva. 1990 .

See what “Antonyms” are in other dictionaries:

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