ENGLISH LEXICOLOGY

LECTURE 7

POLYSEMY, HOMONYMY, SYNONYMS AND ANTONYMS

SUMMARY

Polysemy is the existence within one word of several connected meanings. These meanings
appeared as a result of the development and change of its original meaning. Words are divided
into two: polysemantic and monosemantic words. Polysemantic words are words which have
more than two meanings. Monosemantic words have only one meaning. For example, the word
“man” has eleven meanings in modern English:
1)human being, 2) male human, 3) human race, 4) husband, 5) male person under the authority
of somebody else, 6) manservant, 7) present or former member of a named university, 8) a form
of address, 9) courageous male person, 10) piece used in games such as chess, 11) a person
ideally suited for a task.
From the historical point of view one of the meanings of the word will be primary meaning;
that is such a meaning of a word which was first registered. All other meanings are secondary
meanings. The term secondary meaning shows that the meaning appeared in the language after
the primary meaning was already established.
The meaning which is not dependent on context is the major (or basic) meaning of the word
and the meanings which are dependent on the context are minor meanings. By context we mean
the minimal stretch of speech determining each individual meaning of the word. Ex. “to make”
means “to produce smth”. This is its basic meaning, but other meanings are minor meanings
because they can be found only in a context. The meaning of a word may be determined either
by its lexical or by its grammatical context.

Homonyms are two or more words identical in sound and spelling but different in meaning.
Ex. Ball(1) – bal, ball(2) – top
Toast(1) – qızardılmış çörək; toast(2) – sağlıq demək
Rose(1) – qızıl gül; Rose(2) – xüsusi isim (qız adı)
Sound(1) – səs; sound(2) – boğaz (coğrafiyada)
Bark(1) – itin hürməsi; bark(2) – üzən gəmi.

Homonyms must be studied diachronically and synchronically. Diachronically we study the

origin of homonyms, the sources of homonyms, the time of their appearance in the language.
Synchronically we analyze the present peculiarities of homonyms, their classification etc.
Homonyms are classified into: 1) homonyms proper; 2) homophones; 3) homographs.
Homonyms proper are words identical in pronunciation and spelling and different in meaning.
Ex. Fast(1) – quickly, fast(2) – to do smth. quickly.
Back(1) – geriyə; back(2) – kürək
Spring(1) – yay (prujin); spring(2) – bahar; spring(3) – bulaq

Homophones are words of the same sound form but of different spelling and meaning.
Ex. Air (hava) – heir (varis); him – hymn; knight – night; pail – pale; piece – peace;
write – right; son – sun; see – sea; read – reed; pray – prey.
Homographes are words which are different in sound and in meaning but identical in spelling.
Ex. lead [li:d] lead [ led]
tear [tεə ] tear [ tiə ]
wind [ wind ] wind [waind ]
bow [bou ] bow [bau ].

Synonyms are two or more words belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or
more identical or nearly identical denotational meanings, interchangeable in some contexts.
These words are distinguished by different shades of meaning, connotations and stylistic
features.

The synonymic dominant is the most general term potentially containing the specific features
rendered by all the other members of the group. The words face, visage, countenance have a
common denotational meaning "the front of the head" which makes them close synonyms. Face
is the dominant, the most general word; countenance is the same part of the head with the
reference to the expression it bears; visage is a formal word, chiefly literary, for face or
countenance.
In the series leave, depart, quit, retire, clear out the verb leave, being general and most neutral
term can stand for each of the other four terms.
One must bear in mind that the majority of frequent words are polysemantic and it is precisely
the frequent words that have many synonyms. The result is that a polysemantic word may belong
in its various meanings to several different synonymic groups. Kharitonchic Z. gives the example
of 9 synonymic groups the word part enters as the result of a very wide polysemy:
1) piece, parcel, section, segment, fragment, etc;
2) member, organ, constituent, element, component, etc;
3) share, portion, lot;
4) concern, interest, participation;
5) allotment, lot, dividend, apportionment;
6) business, charge, duty, office, function, work;
7) side, party, interest, concern, faction;
8) character, role, cue, lines;
9) portion, passage, clause, paragraph
The semantic structures of two polysemantic words sometimes coincide in more than one
meaning, but never completely. L. Bloomfield and E. Nida suppose even that there are no actual
synonyms, i.e. forms which have identical meanings.
In a great number of cases the semantic difference between two or more synonyms is supported
by the difference in valency. An example of this is offered by the verbs win and gain both may
be used in combination with the noun victory: to win a victory, to gain a victory. But with the
word war only win is possible: to win a war.
Criteria of synonymity is interchangeability. It should be pointed out that neither the traditional
definition of synonyms nor the new version provide for any objective criterion of similarity of
meaning. It is solely based on the linguistic intuition of the analyst.
Recently there has been introduced into the definition of synonymity the criterion of
interchangeability in linguistic contexts that is synonyms are supposed to be words which can
replace each other in a given context without the slightest alteration either in the denotational or
connotational meaning.
But this is possible only in some contexts, in others their meanings may not coincide, e.g. the
comparison of the sentences "the rainfall in April was abnormal" and "the rainfall in April was
exceptional" may give us grounds for assuming that exceptional and abnormal are synonyms.
The same adjectives in a different context are by no means synonymous, as we may see by
comparing "my son is exceptional" and "my son is abnormal"
Peace and tranquillity are ordinarily listed as synonyms, but they are far from being identical in
meaning. One may speak of a peace conference, but not tranquillity conference. (E.Nida, The
Descriptive analysis of words).

Classification of Synonyms
According to whether the difference is in denotational or connotational component synonyms are
classified into ideographic and stylistic.

Ideographic synonyms denote different shades of meaning or different degrees of a given

quality. They are nearly identical in one or more denotational meanings and interchangeable at
least in some contexts, e.g. beautiful - fine - handsome -pretty Beautiful conveys, for instance,
the strongest meaning; it marks the possession of that quality in its fullest extent, while the other
terms denote the possession of it in part only. Fineness, handsomeness and prettiness are to
beauty as parts to a whole.
In the synonymic group choose, select, opt, elect, pick the word choose has the most general
meaning, the others are characterised by differences clearly statable: select implies a wide choice
of possibilities (select a Christmas present for a child), opt implies an alternative (either this, or
that as in Fewer students are opting for science courses nowadays); pick often implies collecting
and keeping for future use (pick new words), elect implies choosing by vote (elect a president;
elect smb (to be) chairman).

Stylistic synonyms differ not so much in denotational as in emotive value or stylistic sphere of
application.
Literary language often uses poetic words, archaisms as stylistic alternatives of neutral words,
e.g. maid for girl, bliss for happiness, steed for horse, quit for leave.
Calling and vocation in the synonymic group occupation, calling, vocation, business are high-
flown as compared to occupation and business.
In many cases a stylistic synonym has an element of elevation in its meaning, e.g. face - visage,
girl - maiden. Along with elevation of meaning there is the reverse process of degradation: to
begin - to fire away, to eat - to devour, to steal - to pinch, face - muzzle. According to the
criterion of interchangeability in context synonyms are classified into total, relative and
contextual.
Total synonyms are those members of a synonymic group which can replace each other in any
given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative meaning or emotional meaning and
connotations. They are very rare. Examples can be found mostly in special literature among
technical terms and others, e.g. fatherland - motherland, suslik - gopher, noun - substantive,
functional affix - flection, inflection, scarlet fever – scarlatina

Relative Synonyms. Some authors class groups like ask - beg - implore, or like - love - adore,
gift -talent - genius, famous - celebrated- eminent as relative synonyms, as they denote different
degree of the same notion or different shades of meanings and can be substituted only in some
contexts.
Contextual synonyms are similar in meaning only under some specific distributional conditions.
It may happen that the difference between the meanings of two words is contextually neutralised
E.g. buy and get would not generally be taken as synonymous, but they are synonyms in the
following examples:
I'll go to the shop and buy some bread.
I'll go to the shop and get some bread.
The verbs bear, suffer, stand are semantically different and not interchangeable except when
used in the negative form: I can't stand it, I can't bear it.

One of the sources of synonymy is borrowing. Synonymy has its characteristic patterns in each
language. Its peculiar feature in English is the contrast between simple native words stylistically
neutral, literary words borrowed from French and learned words of Greco-Latin origin.
Native English: to ask, to end, to rise, teaching, belly.
French Borrowings: to question, to finish, to mount, guidance, stomach.
Latin borrowings: to interrogate, to complete, to ascend, instruction, abdomen.
There are also words that came from dialects, in the last hundred years, from American English,
in particular, e.g. long distance call AE - trunk call BE, radio AE - wireless BE.
Synonyms are also created by means of all word - forming processes productive in the language.

Synonymic differentiation. It must be noted that synonyms may influence each other
semantically in two diametrically opposite ways: one of them is dissimilation or differentiation,
the other is the reverse process , i.e. assimilation.
Many words now marked in the dictionaries as "archaic" or "obsolete" have dropped out of the
language in the competition of synonyms, others survived with a meaning more or less different
from the original one. This process is called synonymic differentiation and is so current that is
regarded as an inherent law of language development.
The development of the synonymic group land has been studied by A.A. Ufimtseva. When in the
13 century soil was borrowed from French into English its meaning was "a strip of land". OE
synonyms eorpe, land, folde ment "the upper layer of earth in which plants grow". Now, if two
words coincide in meaning and use, the tendency is for one of them to drop out of the language.
Folde became identical to eorpe and in the fight for survival the letter won. The polysemantic
word land underwent an intense semantic development in a different direction and so dropped
out of this synonymic series. It was natural for soil to fill this lexical gap and become the main
name for the notion "the mould in which plants grow". The noun earth retained this meaning
throughout its history whereas the word ground, in which this meaning was formerly absent,
developed it. As a result, this synonymic group comprises at present soil, earth, ground.

The assimilation of synonyms consists in parallel development. This law was discovered and
described by G. Stern, H.A. Treble and G.H. Vallins in their book "An ABC of English Usage",
give as examples the pejorative meanings acquired by the nouns wench, knave and churl which
originally ment "girl", "boy", and "labourer" respectively, and point out that this loss of old
dignity became linguistically possible because there were so many synonymous words of similar
meaning. As the result all the three words underwent degradation in their meanings: wench –
indecent girl, knave – rascal, churl – country man.

Antonyms аrе words belonging to the same part of speech different in sound, and characterised
by semantic polarity of their denotational meaning. According to the character of semantic
opposition antonyms are subdivided into antonyms proper, complete and conversitives.

The semantic polarity in antonyms proper is relative, the opposition is gradual, it may embrace
several elements characterised by different degrees of the same property. They always imply
comparison. Large and little or small denote polar degrees of the same notion, i.e. size.

Complementaries are words characterised only by a binary opposition which may have only
two members; the denial of one member of the opposition implies the assertion of the other e.g.
not male means female.

Conversives are words which denote one and the same referent as viewed from different points
of view, that of the subject and that of the object, e.g. buy-sell, give-receive.
Morphologically antonyms are subdivided into root (absolute) antonyms (good - bad) and
derivational antonyms (apper - disapper).

LECTURE

Monosemantic words are mostly scientific terms: hydrogen, laser, etc. Polysemy may be
analyzed from two ways: diachronically and synchronically. If polysemy is analyzed
diachronically it is understood as the development of the semantic structure of the word or we
establish how the meaning of the word has changed whether it has got new meanings in the
course of the development of the language.

Ex. the primary meaning of the word “fox” is “tülkü” but such meaning of this word as “tülkü
xəzi”, is secondary meaning. Here are other examples: eye – the primary meaning is “göz”,
secondary is “qapının gözcüyü”; father – the primary meaning is “ata”, secondary is “nəslin
ağsaqqalı, mənəvi ata”.
Synchronically polysemy is understood as the coexistence of various meanings of the word at a
certain historical period of the development of English. From the historical point of view one of
the meanings of the word will be primary meaning; that is such a meaning of a word which was
first registered. All other meanings are secondary meanings. The term secondary meaning
shows that the meaning appeared in the language after the primary meaning was already
established.
Synchronically the main problem of polysemy is to establish whether all the meanings of a word
are equally important. We divide the meanings of a word into two: the major (or basic) meaning
of a word and the minor meaning. In most cases the surrounding context points out quite clearly
which of the meanings of a word is intended.
Ex. 1. It is a fox. Here “it” shows that the word “fox” is used in the meaning “tülkü”.
2. He is a fox. The presence of “he” shows that “fox” is in the meaning of “hiyləgər”.
3. She will fox him. We find the meaning from the position of “fox”. It stands after the auxiliary
verb “will” and the direct object “him”. Here it is used in the meaning of “aldatmaq”.

The meaning which is not dependent on context is the major (or basic) meaning of the word
and the meanings which are dependent on the context are minor meanings. By context we mean
the minimal stretch of speech determining each individual meaning of the word. Ex. “to make”
means “to produce smth”. This is its basic meaning, but other meanings are minor meanings
because they can be found only in a context. The meaning of a word may be determined either
by its lexical or by its grammatical context.

Ex. the verb “to take” in such lexical distributions as: take+tea (coffee, medicine) – its meaning
is “içmək”; take+care – “qayğısına qalmaq”; take+of – “soyunmaq”; to take + tram, the metro, a
bus – “… minmək”; The meaning “xəstə” of the adjective “ill” is brought out only by a
syntactical pattern in which “ill” is used as a predicative (ex. the man is ill) while the syntactical
pattern in which the word “ill” is used as an attribute, brings out the meaning “pis” (ex. an ill
man – pis adam).

The comparative study of the frequency value of different meanings of polysemantic words
shows that the frequency value of individual meanings is different. Ex. the meaning of the word
“table”- stol (a piece of furniture) possesses the highest frequency value and comprises 52 % of
all uses of this word. The meanings of polysemantic words have different stylistic references. Ex.
“jerk” in the meaning of “sudden movement” belongs to a neutral style but in the meaning of “an
odd person” it is a slang (mostly expressive and ironical words). Stylistically neutral meanings
are very frequent. In any historical period as a result of semantic development the secondary
meaning of the word may become the central (major meaning of the word). Ex. revolution in
Mid. E. 1360-1460 meant “the revolving motion of celestial bodies”, the meaning “inqilab” was
the secondary, minor meaning. Now the meaning “inqilab” is the major meaning.

The semantic structure of a word is the system and unity of all the types of meaning that a certain
word possesses. The semantic structure has the national character. The semantic structure of
correlated words of two different languages can never cover each other. The major meaning is in
most cases identical in two languages, but others usually differ. The meaning “male child” can
be found both in the English word “boy” and in its Azerbaijanian equivalent “oğlan”, but the
meaning “servant” can’t be found in the Azerbaijanian word “oğlan”.
Prof. Smirnitsky has suggerted his classification of homonyms based on the lexico-grammatical
principle. He distinguished the following types of homonyms:
1) lexical homonyms are those words which belong to one part of speech, but they differ only in
their lexical meaning.
Ex. seal n – a sea animal
seal n – a design printed on paper, stamp.
Hair – hare; ball – ball
2) lexico-grammatical homonyms are those words which differ in their lexical and grammatical
meanings.
Ex. seal n – a sea animal; to seal v – to close tightly; work n – to work v; well adv - well n.
There may be cases when lexico grammatical homonyms are observed within the same part of
speech.
Ex. The words “found” (past tense of “to find”) and “found (present tense of ‘to found”) differ
both grammatically and lexically.
3) grammatical homonymy is the homonymy of the different wordforms of one and the same
word (part of speech).
Ex. boys - boy’s, asked, past tense – asked, p.p.
There are some of homonyms. They are:
1) divergent meanigs development of one polysemantic word. Different meanigs of the same
word move so far away from each other (differ from each other) and they become two different
word Ex. Spring(1) – prujin, spring(2) – bulaq, spring(3) – bahar, can be etymologically traced
back to the same source, “flower” and “flour” which originally were one word ( Mid. E flour).
The meaning was “the flower” and “the finest part of wheat”, now they are different words.
2) many homonyms came as a result of converging sound development. Ex. OE ic and OE a_e
have become identical in pronunciation. I pron and eye ( n ), love (ν) - love n (OE lufu-lufian)
3) many homonyms arose from conversion, they have related meanings. Ex. Paper - to paper,
support - to support.

Some linguists think that converted pairs must not be included in homonyms. This question
demands further investigation.
4) The formation of different grammatical forms may cause homonyms: girl’s-girls.
5) borrowed words may become homonyms as a result of phonetic convergence.
Ex. Scandinavian “ras” and French race are homonymous in English: race - yarış, race - reys
case(1) – hal (qram.), case(2) - çamadan, case(3) – hadisə

Homonomy and polysemy are different categories. In polysemy we deal with the different
meanings of the same word. In homonymy we have different words which have their own
meanings. The problem of difference between polysemy and homonymy is a subject of
discussion among the linguists. Some scientists say that the substitution of different meanings of
words by the synonyms may help to differ homonyms from polysemantic words.
Ex. voice1-sounds uttered in speaking (sound)
voice2- mode of uttering sounds in speaking (sound)
voice3-the vibration of the vocal cords in sounds uttered (sound)
voice4 -the form of the verb that express the relation of the subject to the action.
voice1-voice2-voice3- are not homonyms although they have different meaning because they can
be substituted by the synonym “sound“. As far as “voice4” is concerned it is a homonym because
it can’t be substituted by the word “sound”.

In Modern English homonyms are spread. Homonymic relation can be found not only in words
but also: 1) between morphemes, ex. It’s raining. Flattering won’t help. Fill your glasses. All is
well that ends well: 2) between words and morphemes. Ex. He couldn’t get over the shock. The
watch is shockproof; 3) between words and word-combinations. Ex. Don’t run away. The
runaway was caught; 4) between words and sentences. Ex. I don’t care. He took an I don’t care
attitude.
The interdependence and interrelations of different peculiarities of homonymic pairs demand
further investigation.

Taking up similarity of meaning and contrasts of phonetic shape, we observe that every language
has in its vocabulary a variety of words, kindred in meaning but distinct in morphemic
composition, phonemic shape and usage,ensuring the expression of most delicate shades of
thought, feeling and imagination. The more developed the language, the richer the diversity and
therefore the greater the possibilities of lexical choice enhancing the effectiveness and precision
of speech.
Thus, slay is the synonym of kill but it is elevated and more expressive involving cruelty and
violence. The way synonyms function may be seen from the following example: Already in this
half-hour of bombardment hundreds upon hundreds of men would have been violently slain,
smashed, torn, gouged, crushed, mutilated.
The synonymous words smash and crush are semantically very close, they combine to give a
forceful representation of the atrocities of war. Even this preliminary example makes it obvious
that the still very common definitions of synonyms as words of the same language having the
same meaning or as different words that stand for the same notion are by no
means accurate and even in a way misleading. By the very nature of language every word has its
own history, its own peculiar motivation, its own typical contexts. And besides there is always
some hidden possibility of different connotation and feeling in each of them. Moreover, words of
the same meaning would be useless for communication: they would encumber the language, not
enrich it. If two words exactly coincide in meaning and use,
the natural tendency is for one of them to change its meaning or drop out of the language.
Thus, synonyms are words only similar but not identical in meaning. This definition is correct
but vague. E. g. horse and animal are also semantically similar but not synonymous. A more
precise linguistic definition should be based on a workable notion of the semantic structure of the
word and of the complex nature of every separate meaning in a polysemantic word. Each
separate lexical meaning of a word consists of a denotational component identifying the notion
or the object and reflecting the essential features of the notion named, shades of
meaning reflecting its secondary features, additional connotations resulting from typical contexts
in which the word is used, its emotional component and stylistic colouring. Connotations are not
necessarily present in every word. The b a s i s o f a s y n o n y m i c o p p o s i t i o n is formed
by the first of the above named components, i.e. the denotational component.
It will be remembered that the term o p p o s i t i o n means the relationship of partial difference
between two partially similar elements of a language. A common denotational component forms
the basis of the opposition in synonymic group. All the other components can vary and thus form
the distinctive features of the synonymic oppositions.
S y n o n y m s can therefore be defined in terms of linguistics as two or more words of the same
language, belonging to the same part of speech and possessing one or more identical or nearly
identical denotational meanings, interchangeable, at least in some contexts without any
considerable alteration in denotational meaning, but differing in morphemic composition,
phonemic shape, shades of meaning, connotations, style, valency and idiomatic use. Additional
characteristics of style, emotional colouring and valency peculiar to one of the elements in a
synonymic group may be absent in one or all of the others.
The definition is of necessity very bulky and needs some commenting upon. To have something
tangible to work upon it is convenient to compare some synonyms within their group, so as to
make obvious the reasons for the definition. The verbs experience, undergo, sustain and suffer,
for example, come together, because all four render the notion of experiencing something.
The verb and the noun experience indicate actual living through something and coming to know
it first-hand rather than from hearsay. Undergo applies chiefly to what someone or something
bears or is subjected to, as in to undergo an operation, to undergo changes. Compare also the
following example from L.P. Smith: The French language has undergone considerable and
more recent changes since the date when the Normans brought it into England. In the above
example the verb undergo can be replaced by its synonyms suffer or experience without any
change of the sentence meaning. The difference is neutralised.
Synonyms, then, are interchangeable under certain conditions specific to each group. This seems
to call forth an analogy with phonological neutralisation.
Now, it will be remembered that n e u t r a l i s a t i o n is the absence in some contexts of a
phonetic contrast found elsewhere or formerly in the language. It appears we are justified in
calling s e m a n t i c n e u t r a l i s a t i o n the suspension of an otherwise functioning
semantic opposition that occurs in some lexical contexts. And yet suffer in this meaning (‘to
undergo’), but not in the example above, is characterised by connotations implying wrong or
injury. No semantic neutralisation occurs in phrases like suffer atrocities, suffer heavy
losses. The implication is of course caused by the existence of the main intransitive meaning of
the same word, not synonymous with the group, i.e. ‘to feel pain’. Sustain as an element of this
group differs from both in shade of meaning and style. It is an official word and it suggests
undergoing affliction without giving way.
A further illustration will be supplied by a group of synonymous nouns: hope, expectation,
anticipation. They are considered to be synonymous, because they all three mean ‘having
something in mind which is likely to happen’. They are, however, much less interchangeable
than the previous group because of more strongly pronounced difference in shades of meaning.
Expectation may be either of good or of evil. Anticipation, as a rule, is a pleasurable expectation
of something good. Hope is not only a belief but a desire that some event would happen. The
stylistic difference is also quite marked. The Romance words anticipation and expectation are
formal literary words used only by educated speakers, whereas the native monosyllabic hope is
stylistically neutral. Moreover, they differ in idiomatic usage.
Only hope is possible in such set expressions as: hope against hope, lose hope, pin one’s hopes
on sth. Neither expectation nor anticipation could be substituted into the following quotation
from T.S. Eliot: You do not khow what hope is until you have lost it.
Taking into consideration the corresponding series of synonymous verbs and verbal set
expressions: hope, anticipate, expect, look forward to, we shall see that separate words may be
compared to whole set expressions.
Look forward to is also worthy of note, because it forms a definitely colloquial counterpart to the
rest. It can easily be shown, on the evidence of examples, that each synonymic group comprises
a dominant element. This s y n o n y m i c d o m i n a n t is the most general term of its kind
potentially containing the specific features rendered by all the other members
of the group, as, for instance, undergo and hope in the above.
The s y n o n y m i c d o m i n a n t should not be confused with a g e n e r i c t e r m or a h y p e
r o n y m . A generic term is relative. It serves as the name for the notion of the genus as
distinguished from the names of the species — h y p o n y m s . For instance, animal is a generic
term as compared to the specific names wolf, dog or mouse (which are called e q u o n y m s ) .
Dog, in its turn, may serve as a generic term for different breeds such as bull-dog, collie, poodle,
etc.
The recently introduced term for this type of paradigmatic relation is h y p o n y m y or i n c l u s
i o n , for example the meaning of pup is said to be included in the meaning of dog, i.e. a more
specific term is included in a more generic one. The class of animals referred to by the word dog
is wider and includes the class referred to by the word pup. The term i n с l u s i о n is somewhat
ambiguous, as one might also say that pup includes the meaning ‘dog'+the meaning ‘small’,
therefore the term h y - p o n y m is preferable. We can say that pup is the hyponym of dog, and
dog is the hyponym of animal, dog, cat, horse, cow, etc. are equonyms and are co-hyponyms of
animal. Synonymy differs from hyponymy in being a symmetrical relation, i.e. if a is a synonym
of b, b is the synonym of a. Hyponymy is asymmetrical, i.e. if a is a hyponym of b, b is the
hyperonym of a. The combining forms hypo- and hyper-come from the Greek words hypo-
‘under’ and hyper- ‘over’ (cf. hypotonic ‘having less than normal blood pressure’ and hypertonic
‘having extreme arterial tension’).
According to the definition synonyms possess one or more identical or nearly identical
meanings. To realise the significance of this, one must bear in mind that the majority of frequent
words are polysemantic, and that it is precisely the frequent words that have many synonyms.
The result is that one and the same word may belong in its various meanings to
several different synonymic groups. The verb appear in ... an old brown cat without a tail
appeared from nowhere (Mansfield) is synonymous with come into sight, emerge. On the other
hand, when Gr. Greene depicts the far-off figures of the parachutists who . . . a p peared
stationary, appeared is synonymous with look or seem, their common component being ‘give
impression of’. Appear, then, often applies to erroneous impressions.
Compare the following groups synonymous to five different meanings of the adjective fresh, as
revealed by characteristic contexts:
A fresh metaphor — fresh : : original : : novel : : striking.
To begin a fresh paragraph — fresh : : another : : different : : new.
Fresh air — fresh : : pure : : invigorating.
A freshman — fresh : : inexperienced : : green : : raw.
To be fresh with sb — fresh : : impertinent : : rude.
The semantic structures of two polysemantic words sometimes coincide in more than one
meaning, but never completely.
Synonyms may also differ in emotional colouring which may be present in one element of the
group and absent in all or some of the others. Lonely as compared with alone is emotional as is
easily seen from the following examples: ... a very lonely boy lost between them and aware at
ten that his mother had no interest in him, and that his father was a stranger.
I shall be alone as my secretary doesn’t come to-day. Both words denote being apart from others,
but lonely besides the general meaning implies longing for company, feeling sad because of the
lack of sympathy and companionship. Alone does not necessarily suggest any sadness at being
by oneself. If the difference in the meaning of synonyms concerns the notion or the emotion
expressed, as was the case in the groups discussed above, the synonyms are classed as i d e о g r
a p h i с s y n o n y m s , and the opposition created in contrasting them may be called an i d e o g
r a p h i c o p p o s i t i o n . The opposition is formulated with the help of a clear definitive
statement of the semantic component present in all the members of the group. The analysis
proceeds as a definition by comparison with the standard that is thus settled. The establishment
of differential features proves very helpful, whereas sliding from one synonym to another with
no definite points of departure created a haphazard approach with no chance of tracing the
system.
“The Anglo-Russian Dictionary of Synonyms” edited by J.D. Apresyan analyses semantic,
stylistic, grammatical and distributional characteristics of the most important synonymic groups
with great skill and thoroughness and furnishes an impressive array of well-chosen examples.
The distinctive features evolved in describing the points of similarity and difference within
groups deserves special attention. In analysing the group consisting of the
nouns look, glance, glimpse, peep, sight and view the authors suggest the following distinctive
features: 1) quickness of the action, 2) its character, 3) the role of the doer of the action, 4) the
properties and role of the object.
The words look, glance, glimpse and peep denote a conscious and direct endeavour to see, the
word glance being the most general. The difference is based on time and quickness of the action.
A glance is ‘a look which is quick and sudden’. A glimpse is quicker still, implying only
momentary sight. A peep is ‘a brief furtive glimpse at something that is hidden’. The
words sight and view, unlike the other members of the group, can describe not only the situation
from the point of one who sees something, but also situations in which it is the object — that
what is seen, that is most important, e. g. a fine view over the lake. It is also mentioned that sight
and view may be used only in singular. What is also important about synonyms is that they differ
in their use of prepositions and in other combining possibilities.
One can, for instance, use at before glance and glimpse (at a glance, at a glimpse) but not before
look.
In a stylistic opposition of synonyms the basis of comparison is again the denotational meaning,
and the distinctive feature is the presence or absence of a stylistic colouring which may also be
accompanied by a difference in emotional colouring.
It has become quite a tradition with linguists when discussing synonyms to quote a passage from
“As You Like It” (Act V, Scene I) to illustrate the social differentiation of vocabulary and the
stylistic relationship existing in the English language between simple, mostly native, words and
their dignified and elaborate synonyms borrowed from the French. We shall keep to this time-
honoured convention. Speaking to a country fellow William, the jester Touchstone says:
Therefore, you clown, abandon, — which is in the vulgar leave, — the society, — which in the
boorish is company, — of this female, — which in the common is
woman; which together is abandon the society of this female, or, clown, thou perishest; or to thy
better understanding diest; or, to wit, I kill thee, make thee away, translate thy life into death.
The general effect of poetic or learned synonyms when used in prose or in everyday speech is
that of creating an elevated tone. The point may be proved by the very first example in this
lecture where the poetic and archaic verb slay is substituted for the neutral kill. We must be
on our guard too against the idea that the stylistic effect may exist without influencing the
meaning; in fact it never does. The verb slay not only lends to the whole poetical and solemn
ring, it also shows the writer’s and his hero’s attitude to the fact, their horror and repugnance of
war and their feeling for the victims.
The study of synonyms is a borderline province between semantics and stylistics on the one hand
and semantics and phraseology on the other because of the synonymic collocations serving as a
means of emphasis.
Synonymic pairs like wear and tear, pick and choose are very numerous in modern English
phraseology and often used both in everyday speech and in literature. They show all the typical
features of idiomatic phrases that ensure their memorableness such as rhythm, alliteration, rhyme
and the use of archaic words seldom occurring elsewhere.
The examples are numerous: hale and hearty, with might and main, nevertheless and
notwithstanding, stress and strain, rack and ruin, really and truly, hue and cry, wane and pale,
act and deed. There are many others which show neither rhyme nor alliteration, and consist of
two words equally modern. They are pleonastic, i.e. they emphasise the idea by just
stating it twice, and possess a certain rhythmical quality which probably enhances their unity and
makes them easily remembered. These are: by leaps and bounds, pure and simple, stuff and
nonsense, bright and shining, far and away, proud and haughty and many more.
In a great number of cases the semantic difference between two or more synonyms is supported
by the difference in valency. The difference in distribution may be syntactical, morphological,
lexical, and surely deserves more attention than has been so far given to it. It is, for instance,
known that bare in reference to persons is used only predicatively, while naked occurs both
predicatively and attributively. The same is true about alone, which, irrespectively of referent, is
used only predicatively, whereas its synonyms solitary and lonely occur in both functions. The
function is predicative in the following sentence: If you are idle, be not solitary, if you are
solitary, be not idle (S. Johnson). It has been repeatedly mentioned that begin and commence
differ stylistically. It must be noted, however, that their distributional difference is not less
important. Begin is generalised in its lexical meaning and becomes a semi-auxiliary when used
with an infinitive. E. g.: It has begun to be done — it has been begun. If follows naturally that
begin and not commence is the right word before an infinitive even in formal style. Seem and
appear may be followed by an infinitive or a that-clause, a hill of a hundred metres is not high.
The same relativity is characteristic of its antonym low. As to the word tall, it is used about
objects whose height is greatly in excess of their breadth or diameter and whose actual height is
great for an object of its kind: a tall man, a tall tree. The antonym is short.
The area where substitution is possible is very limited and outside it all replacement makes the
utterance vague, ungrammatical and even unintelligible. This makes the knowledge of where
each synonym differs from another of paramount importance for correctness of speech.
The distinction between words similar in meaning are often very fine and elusive, so that some
special instruction on the use of synonyms is necessary even for native speakers. This accounts
for the great number of books of synonyms that serve as guides for those who aim at good style
and precision and wish to choose the most appropriate terms from the varied
stock of the English vocabulary. The practical utility of such reference works as “Roget’s
International Thesaurus” depends upon a prior knowledge of the language on the part of the
person using them. N.A. Shechtman has discussed this problem on several occasions.
The study of synonyms is especially indispensable for those who learn English as a foreign
language because what is the right word in one situation will be wrong in many other, apparently
similar, contexts.
It is often convenient to explain the meaning of a new word with the help of its previously
learned synonyms. This forms additional associations in the student’s mind, and the new word is
better remembered. Moreover, it eliminates the necessity of bringing in a native word. And yet
the discrimination of synonyms and words which may be confused is more important.
The teacher must show that synonyms are not identical in meaning or use and explain the
difference between them by comparing and contrasting them, as well as by showing in what
contexts one or the other may be most fitly used.
Translation cannot serve as a criterion of synonymy: there are cases when several English words
of different distribution and valency are translated into Russian by one and the same word. Such
words as also, too and as well, all translated by the Russian word тоже, are never
interchangeable.
A teacher of English should always stress the necessity of being on one’s guard against mistakes
of this kind.
C o n t e x t u a l or c o n t e x t - d e p e n d e n t s y n o n y m s are similar in meaning only
under some specific distributional conditions. It may happen that the difference between the
meanings of two words is contextually neutralised. E. g. buy and get would not generally be
taken as synonymous, but they are synonyms in the following examples offered by J. Lyons: I’ll
go to the shop and buy some bread : : I’ll go to the shop and get some bread. The verbs bear,
suffer and stand are semantically different and not interchangeable except when used in the
negative form; can’t stand is equal to can’t bear in the following words of an officer: Gas. I’ve
swallowed too much of the beastly stuff. I can’t stand it any longer. I'm going to the dressing-
station. There are some other distinctions to be made with respect to different kinds of semantic
similarity. Some authors, for instance, class groups like ask : : beg : : implore; like : : love : :
adore or gift : : talent : : genius as synonymous, calling them r e l a t i v e s y n o n y m s . This
attitude is open to discussion. In fact the difference in denotative meaning is unmistakable: the
words name different notions, not various degrees of the same notion, and cannot substitute one
another. An entirely different type of opposition is involved. Formerly we had oppositions based
on the relationships between the members of the opposition, here we deal with proportional
oppositions characterised by their relationship with the whole vocabulary system and based on a
different degree of intensity of the relevant distinctive features.
T o t a l s y n o n y m y , i.e. synonymy where the members of a synonymic group can replace
each other in any given context, without the slightest alteration in denotative or emotional
meaning and connotations, is a rare occurrence. Examples of this type can be found in special
literature among technical terms peculiar to this or that branch of knowledge. Thus, in linguistics
the terms noun and substantive; functional affix, flection and inflection are identical in meaning.
What is not generally realised, however, is that terms are a peculiar type of words totally devoid
of connotations or emotional colouring, and that their stylistic characterisation does not vary.
That is why this is a very special kind of synonymy: neither ideographic nor stylistic oppositions
are possible here. As to the distributional opposition, it is less marked, because the great majority
of terms are nouns. Their interchangeability is also in a way deceptive. Every writer has to make
up his mind right from the start as to which of the possible synonyms he prefers, and stick to it
throughout his text to avoid ambiguity. Thus, the interchangeability is, as it were, theoretical and
cannot be materialised in an actual text.
The same misunderstood conception of interchangeability lies at the bottom of considering
different dialect names for the same plant, animal or agricultural implement and the like as total
(absolute) synonyms. Thus, a perennial plant with long clusters of dotted whitish or purple
tubular flowers that the botanists refer to as genus Digitalis has several dialectal names
such as foxglove, fairybell, fingerflower, finger-root, dead men’s bells, ladies’ fingers. But the
names are not interchangeable in any particular speaker’s i d e o l e c t . 1 The same is true about
the cornflower (Centaurea cyanus), so called because it grows in cornfields; some people call it
bluebottle according to the shape and colour of its petals. Compare also gorse,
furze and whim, different names used in different places for the same prickly yellow-flowered
shrub.

A n t o n y m s may be defined as two or more words of the same language belonging to the
same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style and nearly identical in
distribution, associated and often used together so that their denotative meanings render
contradictory or contrary notions.
C o n t r a d i c t o r y notions are mutually opposed and denying one another, e. g. alive means
‘not dead’ and impatient means ‘not patient’.
C o n t r a r y notions are also mutually opposed but they are gradable, e. g. old and young are the
most distant elements of a series like: old : : middle- aged : : young, while hot and cold form a
series with the intermediate cool and warm, which, as F.R. Palmer points out, form a pair of
antonyms themselves. The distinction between the two types is not absolute, as one
can say that one is more dead than alive, and thus make these adjectives gradable.
Another classification of antonyms is based on a morphological approach: root words form a b s
o l u t e antonyms (right : : wrong), the presence of negative affixes creates d e r i v a t i o n a l
antonyms (happy : : unhappy).
The juxtaposition of antonyms in a literary text emphasises some contrast and creates emotional
tension as in the following lines from “Romeo and Juliet” (Act I, Scene V):
My only love sprang from my only hate\ Too early seen unknown, and known too late!
One of the features enhancing the pathetic expressiveness of these lines is contrast based on such
pairs as love : : hate; early : : late; unknown : : known. The opposition is obvious: each
component of these pairs means the opposite of the other. The pairs may be termed antonymic
pairs.
Antonyms have traditionally been defined as words of opposite meaning. This definition,
however, is not sufficiently accurate, as it only shifts the problem to the question of what words
may be regarded as words of opposite meaning, so we shall keep to the definition given at the
beginning of the present paragraph.
The important question of criteria received a new and rigorously linguistic treatment in V.N.
Komissarov’s work. Keeping to the timehonoured classification of antonyms into absolute or
root antonyms (love : : hate) and derivational antonyms, V.N. Komissarov breaks new ground by
his contextual treatment of the problem. Two words, according to him, shall be considered
antonymous if they are regularly contrasted in actual speech, that is if the contrast in their
meanings is proved by definite types of contextual co-occurrence.
Absolute antonyms, then, are words regularly contrasted as homogenous sentence members
connected by copulative, disjunctive or adversative conjunctions, or identically used in parallel
constructions, in certain typical contexts.
In the examples given below we shall denote the first of the antonyms — A, the second — B,
and the words they serve to qualify — X and Y, respectively.
1. If you’ve obeyed all the rules good and bad, and you still come out at the dirty end ... then I
say the rules are no good (M. Wilson). The formula is: A and (or) В = all
2. He was alive, not dead (Shaw). The formula is:
3. You will see if you were right or wrong (Cronin). The formula is: A or В
4. The whole was big, oneself was little (Galsworthy). The formula is: X is A, and Y, on the
contrary, В
A regular and frequent co-occurrence in such contexts is the most important characteristic
feature of antonyms. Another important criterion suggested by V.N. Komissarov is the
possibility of substitution and identical lexical valency. This possibility of identical contexts is
very clearly seen in the following lines:
There is so much good in the worst of us, and so much bad in the best of us, That it hardly
becomes any of us To talk about the rest of us (Hock).
Members of the same antonymic pair reveal nearly identical spheres of collocation. For example
the adjective hot in its figurative meaning of ‘angry’ and ‘excited’ is chiefly combined with
names of unpleasant emotions: anger, resentment, scorn, etc. Its antonym cold occurs with the
same words.
The diagnostic force of valency is weaker than that of regular cooccurrence. Unlike synonyms,
antonyms do not differ either in style, emotional colouring or distribution. They are
interchangeable at least in some contexts.
The result of this interchange may be of different kind depending on the conditions of context.
There will be, for instance, no change of meaning if i l l and well change places within the
sentence in the following: But whether he treated it ill or well, it loved nothing so much as to be
near him. Or a whole sentence receives an opposite meaning when a word is
replaced by its antonym, although it differs from its prototype in this one word only: You may
feel he is clever : : You may feel he is foolish.
As antonyms do not differ stylistically, an antonymic substitution never results in a change of
stylistic colouring.
The possibility of substitution and identical valency show that semantic polarity is a very special
kind of difference implying a great deal of sameness. In dealing with antonymic oppositions it
may be helpful to treat antonyms in terms of “marked” and “unmarked” members. The unmarked
member can be more widely used and very often can include the referents of the marked member
but not vice versa. This proves that their meanings have some components in common. In the
antonymic pair old : : young the unmarked member is old. It is possible to ask: How old is the
girl? Without implying that she is no longer young. W.C. Chafe says that we normally talk about
a continuum of wideness as width and not about a continuum of narrowness. Thus, the usual
question is: How wide is if? and not How narrow
is it? which proves the unmarked vs marked character of wide vs narrow.
In the antonymic opposition love : : hate, there is no unmarked element.
Some authors, J.Lyons among them, suggest a different terminology. They distinguish antonyms
proper and complementary antonyms. The chief characteristic feature of antonyms proper is that
they are regularly gradable.
Antonyms proper, therefore, represent contrary notions. Grading is based on the operation of
comparison. One can compare the intensity of feeling as in love — attachment — liking —
indifference — antipathy — hate.
Whenever a sentence contains an antonym or an antonymic pair, it implicitly or explicitly
contains comparison. The important point to notice is this — the denial of the one member of
antonymic opposition does not always imply the assertion of the other — take, for instance W.H.
Auden’s line: All human hearts have ugly little treasures. If we say that our hearts’ treasures are
neither ugly nor little, it does not imply that they are beautiful or great.
It is interesting to note that such words as young : : old; big : : small; good : : bad do not refer to
independent absolute qualities but to someimplicit norm, they are relative. Consider the
following portrait of an elephant:
The Elephant
When people call this beast to mind,
They marvel more and more
At such a little tail behind
So large a trunk before.
The tail of an elephant is little only in comparison with his trunk and the rest of his body. For a
mouse it would have been quite big. J. Lyons discusses an interesting example of antonyms also
dealing with elephants: A small elephant is a large animal. The implicit size-norm for elephants
is not the same as that for all animals in general: the elephant which is small in comparison with
other elephants may be big in comparison with animals as a class.
This example may also serve to show the difference and parallelism between antonymy proper
and complementarity (expressing contradictory notions). The semantic polarity in antonymy
proper is relative, the opposition is gradual, it may embrace several elements characterised by
different degrees of the same property. The comparison they imply is clear from the context.
Large and little denote polar degrees of the same notion. The same referent which may be small
as an elephant is a comparatively big animal, but it cannot be male as an elephant and female as
an animal: a male elephant is a male animal.
Having noted the difference between complementary antonyms and antonyms proper, we must
also take into consideration that they have much in common so that in a wider sense both groups
are taken as antonyms. Complementaries like other antonyms are regularly contrasted in speech
(male and female), and the elements of a complementary pair have similar distribution.
The assertion of a sentence containing an antonymous or complementary term implies the denial
of a corresponding sentence containing the other antonym or complementary:
The poem is good → The poem is not bad (good : : bad — antonyms proper)
This is prose → This is not poetry (prose : : poetry — complementaries)
As to the difference in negation it is optional with antonyms proper: by saying that the poem is
not good the speaker does not always mean that it is positively bad. Though more often we are
inclined to take into consideration only the opposite ends of the scale and by saying that
something is not bad we even, using a litotes, say it is good.
So complementaries are a subset of antonyms taken in a wider sense. If the root of the word
involved in contrast is not semantically relative, its antonym is derived by negation. Absolute or
root antonyms are on this morphological basis, contrasted to those containing some negative
affix.
Thus, the second group of antonyms is known as d e r i v a t i o n a l a n - t o n y m s . The
affixes in them serve to deny the quality stated in the stem. The opposition known : : unknown in
the opening example from Shakespeare is by no means isolated: far from it. It is not difficult to
find other examples where contrast is implied in the morphological structure of the word itself.
E. g. appear : : disappear; happiness : : unhappiness; logical : : illogical; pleasant : :
unpleasant; prewar : : postwar; useful : : useless, etc. There are typical affixes and typical
patterns that go into play in forming these derivational antonyms. It is significant that in the
examples given above prefixes prevail. The regular type of derivational antonyms
contains negative prefixes: dis-, il-/im-/in-/ir-, поп- and un-. Other negative prefixes occur in this
function only occasionally.
As to the suffixes, it should be noted that modern English gives no examples of words forming
their antonyms by adding a negative suffix, such as, for instance, -less. The opposition hopeless :
: hopeful or useless : : useful is more complicated, as the suffix -less is not merely added to the
contrasting stem, but substituted for the suffix -ful. The group is not numerous.
In most cases, even when the language possesses words with the suffix - less, the antonymic
pairs found in actual speech are formed with the prefix un-. Thus, the antonymic opposition is
not selfish : : self/ess but selfish : : unselfish. Cf. selfishness : : unselfishness; selfishly : :
unselfishly. E.g. : I had many reasons, both selfish and unselfish, for not giving the unnecessary
openings.
Several features distinguish the two groups of antonyms. In words containing one of the above
negative prefixes the contrast is expressed morphologically as the prefixed variant is in
opposition to the unprefixed one. Therefore if the morphological motivation is clear, there is no
necessity in contexts containing both members to prove the existence of derivational
antonyms. The word unsuccessful, for instance, presupposes the existence of the word
successful, so that the following quotation is sufficient for establishing the contrast: Essex was
always in a state of temper after one of these unsuccessful interviews.
The patterns, however, although typical, are not universal, so that morphologically similar
formations may show different semantic relationships. Disappoint, for example, is not the
antonym of appoint, neither is unman ‘to deprive of human qualities’ the antonym of man ‘to
furnish with personnel’.
The difference between absolute and derivational antonyms is not only morphological but
semantic as well. To reveal its essence it is necessary to turn to logic. A pair of derivational
antonyms form a privative binary opposition, whereas absolute antonyms, as we have already
seen, are polar members of a gradual opposition which may have intermediary elements, the
actual number of which may vary from zero to several units, e. g. beautiful : : pretty : : good-
looking : : plain : : ugly.
Many antonyms are explained by means of the negative particle: clean — not dirty, shallow —
not deep. It is interesting to note that whereas in Russian the negative particle and the negative
prefix are homonymous, in the English language the negative particle not is morphologically
unrelated to the prefixes dis-, il-/im-/in-/ir- and un-. Syntactic negation by means of this particle
is weaker than the lexical antonymy. Compare: not happy : : unhappy; not polite : : impolite; not
regular : : irregular; not to believe : : to disbelieve. To prove this difference in intensity V.N.
Komissarov gives examples where a word with a negative prefix is added to compensate for the
insufficiency of a syntactic negation, even intensified by at all: I am sorry to inform you that we
are not at all satisfied with your sister. We are very much dissatisfied with her.
Almost every word can have one or more synonyms. Comparatively few have antonyms. This
type of opposition is especially characteristic of qualitative adjectives. Cf. in W.Shakespeare’s
“Sonnet LXXVI":
For as the sun is daily new and old, So is my love still telling what is told.
It is also manifest in words derived from qualitative adjectives, e. g. gladly : : sadly; gladness : :
sadness. Irrespective of the part of speech, they are mostly words connected with feelings or
state: triumph : : disaster; hope : : despair. Antonymic pairs, also irrespective of part of speech,
concern direction (hither and thither) (L.A. Novikov calls these “vectorial antonyms"), and
position in space and time (far and near).
Nothing so difficult as a beginning,
In poetry, unless perhaps the end (Byron).
Compare also day : : night; late : : early; over : : under.
The number of examples could be augmented, but those already quoted will suffice to illustrate
both the linguistic essence of antonyms and the very prominent part they play among the
expressive means a language can possess. Like synonyms they occupy an important place in the
phraseological fund of the language: backwards and forwards, far and
near, from first to last, in black and white, play fast and loose, etc.
Not only words, but set expressions as well, can be grouped into antonymic pairs. The phrase by
accident can be contrasted to the phrase on purpose. Cf. up to par and below par. Par represents
the full nominal value of a company’s shares, hence up to par metaphorically means ‘up to the
level of one’s normal health’ and below par ‘unwell’.
Antonyms form mostly pairs, not groups like synonyms: above : : below; absent : : present;
absence : : presence; alike : : different; asleep : : awake; back : : forth; bad : : good; big : :
little, etc. Cases when there are three or more words are reducible to a binary opposition, so that
hot is contrasted to cold and warm to cool.
Polysemantic words may have antonyms in some of their meanings and none in the others. When
criticism means ‘blame’ or ‘censure’ its antonym is praise, when it means ‘writing critical essays
dealing with the works of some author’, it can have no antonym. The fact lies at the basis of
W.S. Maugham’s pun: People ask you for criticism, but they only want praise.
Also in different meanings a word may have different aa-tonyms. Compare for example: a short
story : : a long story but a short man : : a tall man; be short with somebody : : be civil with
somebody Semantic polarity presupposes the presence of some common semantic
components in the denotational meaning. Thus, while ashamed means ‘feeling unhappy or
troubled because one has done something wrong or foolish’, its antonym proud also deals with
feeling but the feeling of happiness and assurance which also has its ground in moral values.
A synonymic set of words is an opposition of a different kind: its basis is sameness or
approximate sameness of denotative meaning, the distinctive features can be stylistic, emotional,
distributional or depending on valency.
There is one further type of semantic opposition we have to consider. The relation to which the
name of c o n v e r s i v e s is usually given may be exemplified by such pairs as buy : : sell; give
: : receive; ancestor : : descendant; parent : : child; left : : right; cause : : suffer; saddening : :
saddened.
Conversives (or relational opposites) as F.R. Palmer calls them denote one and the same referent
or situation as viewed from different points of view, with a reversal of the order of participants
and their roles. The interchangeability and contextual behaviour are specific. The relation is
closely connected with grammar, namely with grammatical contrast of active and
passive. The substitution of a conversive does not change the meaning of a sentence if it is
combined with appropriate regular morphological and syntactical changes and selection of
appropriate prepositions: He gave her flowers. She received flowers from him. = She was given
flowers by him.
Some linguists class conversives as a subset of antonyms, others suggest that antonyms and
conversives together constitute the class of contrastives. Although there is parallelism between
the two relations, it seems more logical to stress that they must be distinguished, even if the
difference is not always clear-cut. The same pair of words, e. g. fathers and sons, may be
functioning as antonyms or as conversives.
An important point setting them apart is that conversive relations are possible within the
semantic structure of one and the same word. M.V. Nikitin mentions such verbs as wear, sell,
tire, smell, etc. and such adjectives as glad, sad, dubious, lucky and others.
It should be noted that sell in this case is not only the conversive of buy, it means ‘be sold’, ‘find
buyers’ (The book sells well). The same contrast of active and passive sense is observed in
adjectives: sad ‘saddening’ and ‘saddened’, dubious and doubtful mean ‘feeling doubt and
inspiring doubt’. This peculiarity of conversives becomes prominent if we compare
equivalents in various languages. The English verb marry renders both conversive meanings, it
holds good for both participants: Mary married Dick or Dick married Mary. In a number of
languages, including Russian, there are, as J. Lyons and some other authors have pointed out,
two verbs: one for the woman and another for the man.
The methodological significance of the antonymic, synonymic, conversive, hyponymic and other
semantic relations between lexical items becomes clear if we remember that the place that each
unit occupies in the lexical system and its function is derived from the relations it contracts with
other units.