Week 3 OPPOSITENESS AND DISSIMILARITY OF SENSE

REMEMBER! Words may be opposite in meaning in different ways, and some words have no real
opposites.
TASK 1. Quickly, what would you say are the opposites of the following words?
a. Hot=chilly; b. thick=thin; thick-slender c. buy=sell; d. lend=borrow; e. male=femele;
b. f. dead=alive g. lunch=dinner; h. liquid/solid/gas/plasm/
She had an accident and was found lying in a ditch more dead than alive.
Notice that hot is not the opposite of cold in the same way as borrow is the opposite of lend; thick is
not the opposite of thin in the same way as dead is the opposite of alive.

REMEMBER! There are four types of oppositional relationships:

 Binary antonymy (complementarity) Binary antonyms are predicates which come
in pairs and between them exhaust all relevant possibilities. If the one predicate is applicable, then
the other cannot be, and vice versa. Example: true and false. If a sentence is true, it cannot be false.
If it is false, it cannot be true.

TASK 2. Are the following predicates binary antonyms? B

a. chalk – cheese (non identity); b. same, similar – different; non-binary c. married – unmarried;
widow-unmarried, binary d. dead – alive; binary e. copper – tin non-binary); f. love – hate non-
binary===like

Sometimes two binary antonyms can combine in a set of predicates to produce a four-way contrast.
TASK 3 Place the words man, boy, woman, girl in the appropriate boxes in the chart:.
MALE FEMALE
ADULT Man, husband Woman , wife
NON-ADULT Boy, bachelor Girl, spinster
Make up a similar chart and fill in the words bachelor, spinster-fata batrana, husband, wife.

 converseness If a predicate describes a relationship between two things (or people)

and some other predicate describes the same relationship when the two things (or people) are
mentioned in the opposite order, then the two predicates are converses of each other.

TASK 4. Are the following pairs of expressions converses? C

a. below – above; -if A is below B, B is above A C
b. grandparent – grandchild; C
c. greater than - less than(*smaller; C
d. love – hate; NC, if A hates B, B loves A?
e. own - belong to(SYNON; C
f. conceal(ascunde – reveal NC

TASK 5 Give converses for the following predicates:

a. 12 is twice 6. =than 6 is half of 12
b. Tokyo is bigger than London.=than London is smaller than Tokyo
c. Chomsky was a student of Harris.=Harris was Chomsky s professor
d. Elizabeth I succeeded Mary.=Mary preceded Elozabeth I
 e. Belgrade is below Vienna (on the Danube). Over/above viena is above Belgrade

REMEMBER! In both types of antonymy discussed, the antonyms come in pairs. In the case of
converses, they form a relational pair. In the case of complementaries, they fully fill the area to
which they can be applied. Such a pair can be thought as a miniature semantic system. Thus, male
and female between them constitute the English sex system (?!), true and false are the members of
the truth system etc. Other such systems can have three, four or any number of members.

 multiple incompatibility What systems of multiple incompatibles have in common is

that (a) all the terms in a given system are mutually incompatible, and (b) together, the members of
a system cover all the relevant area. For instance, a playing card cannot belong to both the hearts
suit♥ and the spades suit♠. And besides hearts, clubs♣, diamonds♦ and spades, there are no other
units. Systems such as these are called systems of multiple incompatibility.

TASK 6 Answer the following questions

a. What would you call the system of opposites to which the words spring and summer both
belong? Multiple incomp.
b. How many members does this system have altogether? Multiple incompatibility
c. What would you call the system to which solid and gas belong? States of matter
d. Can you think of an example of a seven-member system? the spectrum, 7 wonders, sins, month,
virtues,
e. Four-member systems are quite common. How many can you think of? Season, points of the
compass, spheres of Terra, 4 horsemen

REMEMBER!
 gradability Two predicates are gradable antonyms if they are at opposite ends of a
continuous scale of values, which may be given names such as warm, cool, tepid. What is called
hot in one context could well be classed as cold in another context. A good test for gradability is to
see whether a word can combine with very, how much?, how?, very much

TASK 7 Are the following pairs gradable opposites~antonyms (“antonyms proper”)?

a. tall – short; grad
b. top – bottom; =non-grad.
c. long – short; =non-grad
d. love – hate; grad.
Adore-love-like-dislike-hate-despise-loathe
e. clever – stupid grad
John and his brother Sam are both very clever, but John is…. than…grad

TASK 8. Apply this test to the following words to decide whether they are gradable (G) or not
(NG): a. near;
b. cheap; G
c. beautiful; G
d. electrical;NG
e. triangular NG
My house is nearer the centre than your house.
TASK 9. To sum up these exercises in antonymy and incompatibility, classify the following pairs
as binary antonyms (B), multiple incompatibles (M) => systems ANIMAL KINGDOM, converses
(C) or gradable antonyms (G).
a. cat – dog;=incomp
b. b. easy – difficult;=grad
c. c. pass – fail; converses, binary ant.
d. d. good – bad; =grad antonyms
e. e. urban – rural; =binary ant.
f. . deciduous – evergreen;=binary
g. g. better than - worse than=Grad

REMEMBER! Certain relationships between predicates, such as hyponymy and synonymy, could
be paired off with certain relationships between sentences, such as entailment and paraphrase.)
word1 word 2 sense
relation=synonymy buy purchase
sentence 1 sentence 2 paraphrase
I bought a car. / I purchased a vehicle. => buy/purchase (I, car/vehicle)
word1 word2 antonymy
sentence1(proposition p) sentence2 contradictoriness
Antonymy is a relation between predicates, and the corresponding relationship between sentences
is contradictoriness. A proposition is a contradictory of another proposition if it is impossible for
them to be true at the same time and of the same circumstances. The definition can naturally be
extended to sentences thus: a sentence expressing one proposition is a contradictory of a sentence
expressing another proposition if it is impossible for both propositions to be true at the same time
and of the same circumstances. Alternatively (and equivalently) a sentence contradicts another
sentence if it entails the negation of another sentence. =>the use of the negator NOT
alive dead opposites (antonyms?)
Example This beetle is alive is a contradictory of This beetle is dead
This beetle is alive is a contradictory of This beetle is NOT alive.
TASK 10. Say whether the following pairs are contradictories (contradict each other) or not.
Assume constancy of reference of all referring expressions.
a. John murdered Bill. Bill was murdered by John PARAPHRASE=>PROPOSITION
b. John murdered Bill. John did not kill Bill.===contradictory
?John killed Bill. John didn’t murder Bill. =non contr

c. Bill died. James can't swim. =incong.

d. Mary is Ann's parent. Mary is Ann's child.=contr
e. Room 404 is below this one. Room 404 is above this one.=contr
f. This doorhandle is brass. This doorhandle is plastic.?=contr

REMEMBER!
Hyponymy* ~ (kind of) relation “is_a” ~ is the relation between a more general and more
specific word, a relation of inclusion.
If you can say all X's are also Y's then this also means that X is a hyponym of Y
The opposite relation is that Y is a superordinate of X, also called hypernym*.
The reference of the hyponym – the set of things that it can point to – is wholly contained by the
reference of the superordinate. In other words, every X is a Y, to use the same convention as
above.
every beagle is a dog
every dog is a canine
*(literally "under-name" and "above-name" respectively.
** meronymy “has_a”
examples:
nouns: subordinate mouse / superordinate rodent
subordinate car / superordinate vehicle
verbs: subordinate punch / superordinate hit
subordinate peep / superordinate look
adjectives: subordinate scarlet / superordinate red
subordinate alert / superordinate awake
However, not all such contexts involve pure hyponymy, since instances of overlap can also
occur:
dogs and other pets => (not all dogs are pets) AND OR
snakes  and other  poisonous creatures => (not all snakes are poisonous)
In this case, the pairs of words are compatible, but not hyponymous.
Incompatibles We can't form the sorts of sentences we did for hyponyms and compatible words.
?? dogs and other cats
co-hyponyms / sister concepts
Discuss the title of the novel My Family and Other Animals by ethologist and conservationist
Gerald Durrell.
TASK 11. Which of the following statements are true?
a. tennis is a hyponym of sport;
b. pea and vegetable are co-hyponyms;
c. plant is a superordinate of tree;
d. lamb is a hyponym of creature;
e. lemon and tomato are co-hyponyms;
f. game is a hyponym of sport

EXTRA What type of sense relation does this joke rely on:
"Do you believe in [clubs1] for young people?” someone asked W.C. Fields. "[club2]Only when
kindness fails,' replied Fields." (Quoted by Graeme Ritchie in The Linguistic Analysis of Jokes.
Routledge, 2004)

Clubs- club sau bâte---coincidence of form===homonyms

Kindnes-violence