2. Paronymy. Antonymy. 2.1 . Paronyms. 2.2 Antonyms

2. Paronymy. Antonymy

2. 1. Paronyms

Paronymy is an intermediate phenomenon between homonymy (identical sound-form) and synonymy (similar meaning).

Paronyms are words which are partially similar in form but different in meaning and usage: proscribe-prescribe. The coinciding parts are not morphemes but meaningless sound-clusters. Pairs like historic-historical (words containing the same root-morpheme) are usually treated as synonyms. Yet words of both groups are easily confused in speech even by native speakers: sensible- sensitive, prudent-prudish.

Improper usage of learned and sonorous language results in the so-called malapropisms. to have a supercilious (superficial) knowledge in accounts. This kind of word confusion is due to ignorance and produces a humorous effect. Malapropisms may be viewed as a kind of paronyms. The words are attracted to each other because of their partial phonetic similarity.

2. 2 Antonyms

Antonyms are words belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style, expressing contrary or contradictory notions.

V. N. Komissarov classified antonyms into two groups: absolute (root) antonyms (late - early) and derivational antonyms (to please – to displease, honest

- dishonest).

Absolute antonyms have different roots and derivational antonyms have the same roots but different affixes. In most cases negative prefixes form antonyms (un-, dis- non-). Sometimes they are formed by means of antonymous suffixes: -ful and –less (painful - painless).

The number of antonyms with the suffixes ful- and -less is not very large, and sometimes even if we have a word with one of these suffixes its antonym is formed not by substituting -ful by less-, e. g. «successful» - unsuccessful», «selfless» - «selfish». The same is true about antonyms with negative prefixes, e. g. «to man» is not an antonym of the word «to unman», «to disappoint» is not an antonym of the word «to appoint».

The difference between derivational and root antonyms is also in their semantics. Derivational antonyms express contradictory notions, one of them excludes the other: active-inactive. Absolute antonyms express contrary notions. If

some notions can be arranged in a group of more than two members, the most distant members of the group will be absolute antonyms: ugly, plain, good-looking, pretty, beautiful, the antonyms are ugly and beautiful.

Leonard Lipka in the book «Outline of English Lexicology» describes different types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into three types:

a) complementary, e. g. male -female, married -single,

b) antonyms, e. g. good -bad,

c) converseness, e. g. to buy - to sell.

In his classification he describes complementarity in the following way: the denial of the one implies the assertion of the other, and vice versa. «John is not married» implies that «John is single». The type of oppositeness is based on yes/no decision. Incompatibility only concerns pairs of lexical units.

Antonymy is the second class of oppositeness. It is distinguished from complementarity by being based on different logical relationships. For pairs of antonyms like good/bad, big/small only the second one of the above mentioned relations of implication holds. The assertion containing one member implies the negation of the other, but not vice versa. «John is good» implies that «John is not bad», but «John is not good» does not imply that «John is bad». The negation of one term does not necessarily implies the assertion of the other.

An important linguistic difference from complementaries is that antonyms are always fully gradable, e. g. hot, warm, tepid, cold.

Converseness is mirror-image relations or functions, e. g. husband/wife, pupil/teacher, precede/follow, above/below, before/after etc.

«John bought the car from Bill» implies that «Bill sold the car to John». Mirror-image sentences are in many ways similar to the relations between active and passive sentences. Also in the comparative form: »Y is smaller than X, then X is larger than Y».

Not every word in a language can have antonyms. This type of opposition can be met in qualitative adjectives and their derivatives, e. g. beautiful- ugly, to beautify - to uglify, beauty - ugliness. It can be also met in words denoting feelings and states, e. g. respect - scorn, to respect - to scorn, respectful - scornful, to live - to die, alive - dead, life - death. It can be also met among words denoting direction in space and time, e. g. here - there, up - down, now - never, before - after, day - night, early - late etc.

If a word is polysemantic it can have several antonyms, e. g. the word «bright» has the antonyms «dim», «dull», «sad».

Literature to be studied:

• " English Word" by Arnold p. 177-197.

• " A course in Modern English Lexicology" by Ginsburg.

• " English Lexicology" by Antrushina.

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