2.2.2 Polar, overlapping, equipollent antonyms

There is also another widespread typology. Cruse states that we may distinguish among polar, overlapping and equipollent antonyms. This typology relies on semantic peculiarities of the meaning held in antonymic pairs, in particular on objectiveness/subjectiveness of the meaning. Besides, the three groups display differences with respect to certain properties. Firsty, they differ in respect of the sort of properties they refer to [8, p.208].

Polar antonyms can be defined as objectively descriptive. They are typically evaluatively neutral. As a rule, they refer to the scaled properties which may be measured in conventional units such as grams, metres, inches, litres etc. A vivid example of this group of antonyms is antonymic pair long/short.

Overlapping antonyms are characterized by evaluative polarity in their meaning. That is one member of the pair is commendatory in its meaning ( safe, clean, honest, polite, pretty) while another one has a deprecatory meaning ( dangerous, dirty, dishonest, rude, plain)

Equipollent antonyms refer to sensations, emotions and reactions based on subjective evaluations rather than relying on some objective standards.. This group is perhaps the smallest one. The examples of the antonyms of this type are nice/nasty, pleasant/unpleasant etc. [8, p.208-209]

According to Cruse, there exists an intuitively satisfying explanation of the difference among the three groups. What he means is that in case with equipollent and overlapping antonymy the properties denoted by antonym pairs are quasi-autonomous. For example, shortness is no more and no less than absence of length whereas goodness and badness, cleverness and dullness, hotness and coldness are in a way independent properties Although if to explore them in depth then of course a common gradable property for all of these members will be found, but at a more superficial level the described by equipollent and overlapping antonyms properties have certain independence [8, p.210].

2.3 Occurrence of antonyms in different word classes

Generally the most sizeable group of antonyms is among adjectives, in particular gradable ones. Gradable adjectives occur often in binomial phrases, such hot and cold, search high and low, the long and the short of it etc. A lot of gradable antonyms are also found among adverbs, which derived from adjectives: slowly/quickly, cautiously/recklessly etc. [23, p.212]

Antonymy is not restricted to adjectives, though. Of course, other classes contain antonyms as well, though to a lesser extent, and these are in the majority of cases of complementary and converse types. The following are the examples of gradable and complementary antonymic pairs in a noun class: truth/falsehood, peace/war, hope/despair, happiness/misery etc. However, there are also some converse antonymic pairs among nouns, such as parent/child, employer/employee etc.

Among the verbs there are complementary antonyms: to detach/to attach, to accept/to refuse, to float/to sink; and there is also a great share of directional (converse) antonyms: to give/to buy, to lend/to borrow. The most number of verbal antonymic pairings refer to so called bounded events or actions ( e.g. to accept/to reject, to agree/to disagree), although there is also a lot of scalar antonyms such as to praise/to criticize, to love/to hate, to increase/to diminish etc. Semantic patterns in this case are closely related to adjectival and nominal meanings in a way that they are conceptually simple and signify some opposites on a scale [17, p.139].

Among prepositions and adverb particles antonymic relations exist as well, for instance in/off, which is an example of complementary antonymy, or above/below, which are of directional (converse) type [23, p.212].