The Linguistics Theory Essay Example | Topics and Well Written Essays - 1750 words

The Linguistics Theory - Essay Example Words that relate just by meaning, form lexical relations, can take various forms: synonymy is when all the semantic components of the words are similar; antonyms are created when one component of the meanings differ, and hyponymy is the case of an extra component is added to differentiate one word from the other. The antonym is a lexical opposition. It was traditionally classified as a contrastive paradigmatic construction (meaning a complex lexical construction that unifies with other constructions, resulting in syntagmatic usage). Unlike other paradigmatic relations, antonymy is both a lexical and a semantic relationship. Unlike synonyms and hyponyms, antonyms can only exist in binary form. Some lexicologists use the term opposite to refer to the semantic relation and antonym specifically for opposites that are also lexically related. It is also thought that, unlike synonyms and hyponyms, the antonym can only be a contrast set of only two words. But, depending on the meaning, word s may have different antonyms. Besides the natural binarity of the antonym, there is also the possibility of a brighter spectrum of contrast. For instance, the antonym of happy would be: sad. But â€Å"angry† is also very different from happy and can easily be used to contradict it.Coordinated Antonymy, a discourse –functional category – it indicates exhaustiveness of the scale involved. It neutralizes the difference between normally opposed categories, by considering them and all the instances in between, as being true.