2.2 Typology of antonyms

2.2.1 Gradable, complementary, directional antonyms

Antonymy covers a number of different types of oppositeness in meaning. As a rule, the linguists differentiate among three types of antonyms: gradable antonyms, contradictory (complementary) antonyms and directional (converse/relational) antonyms. The antonyms of these types three types have different properties and express the idea of oppositeness in different ways. However, while using these types, the speakers are usually unaware of the fact which actually type of antonymy they are resorting to [ 23, p. 202].

Gradable antonymy, which is also sometimes reffered to as classical or polar opposition, deals with contrasting gradable predicates. These gradable predicates are gradable in a way that they can have some certain degrees [4, p. 26]. This type of antonymy does not represent or/either relation. For example, the sentence The water is hot entails that the water is not cold; but if we say The water is not hot, we do not necessarily mean that the water is cold. The water may be lukewarm or tepid as well [5, p.111]. In English gradability can be tested by the possibility of modification with very, hardly, than or more ( -er)/less, which obviously means that the relation that holds between antonyms of this type is the matter of degree.

It may be said that gradable antonyms describe notions in a relatively subjective way. For example, it is arguable whether German shepherds are large or small dogs. The owner of Chihuahua will rather say that German shepherds are large whereas the owner of Great Dane will presumable regard them as small dogs [11, p.185].

What is interesting about gradable antonyms is that they often exhibit markedness phenomenon. The property of markedness can be revealed through such questions as “How long was the discussion?», where short is not normally used instead of long, because if we ask «How short was the discussion?» we already assume that the discussion was short [23, p.203-204]. In such questions, and giving measurement, it is usually the «larger» of the antonyms that is used: «How wide is the road?» but not «How narrow is a road?» etc. [ 13]

Complementary ( or contradictory antonymy) represents or/either relation and thus encompasses those antonyms which are non-gradable. The assertion of one antonym entails the negation of another one, and vice versa. For example, X is even contradicts X is odd, and X is even is synonymous with X is not odd [4, p.26]. The following antonymic pairs exemplify the case of complementarity: asleep/awake, dead/alive, on/off, to remember/to forget, to shut/to open, to include/to exclude, to increase/to decrease, true/false, to win/to lose, permit/forbid etc .

So it is difficult to imagine a middle ground between the extremes presented by the majority of complementary antonyms. Besides, complementary antonyms should have neither comparative nor superlative [ 23, p. 204-205]. But on the other hand, this approach may be violated in some cases. To denote such special cases Keith Allan uses the term «gradable complementaries». For instance, this may be the case with such adjectives as honest and dishonest. Although they seem to contradict to each other, but there may be a middle ground between them as long as we may say that a person is neither honest nor dishonest. In some contexts even such antonyms as dead and alive take on gradable qualities [4, p.26]. This can be evident from such expressions as half dead, barely alive, more dead than alive etc. So the distinction between gradable and non-gradable antonymy is sometimes blurred by the users [11, p.185].

Directional ( converse and reverse) antonyms follow the pattern, according to which if X is p to Y, then Y is q to X. Converse antonymy encompasses the following examples: to give/to receive, above/below, child/parent, teacher/student, to speak/to listen, superior/subordinate etc.

Keith Allan differentiates between converse and reverse subtypes of directional antonyms. In case with converse antonymy, for each pair of antonyms, one expresses the converse meaning of the other. Due to such a property antonymic pairs of converse type are sometimes referred to as relational pairs [23, p.205]. Here each of the members describes the same situation from different points of view. For example, if X gives Y to Z, than Z receives Y from X.

Reverse antonyms involve undoing of some action, for example to build/to demolish, to tie/to untie etc. But very often reverse and converse synonyms, together with some miscellaneous examples such as left/right, come/go are viewed as one group of directional antonyms[4, p.24].