Antonymsare words belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style, expressing contrary or contradictory notions. It’s more or less universally recognized that among the cases that are traditionally described as antonyms there are at least the following 4 groups:
- Contradictories are mutually opposed and deny one another
- single-married
- dead – alive
- Contraries are also mutually opposed but they are gradable.
- Cold – hot and cool – warm
- Incompatibles -the negation of one number of this set excludes the possibility of the other words of this set
- To say morning is to say not afternoon, not evening, not night.
- To say red is to say not blue, green, etc.
- Conversives denote one reference as viewed from different points of view that of the subject & that of the object.
- bye – sell, give – receive
Комиссаров В.Н. classify them into:
absolute/ root (late/early)they have different roots ,
derivational (to please-to displease) the same root but different affixes. In most cases “-“ prefixes from antonymsan, dis, non.Sometimes they are formed by suffixesfull & less. But they do not always substitute each otherselfless – selfish, successful – unsuccessful .the same with “-“ prefixes to appoint – to disappoint.
The difference is not only in structure but in semantic. The DA express contradictory notions, one of them excludes the otheractive – inactive. TheAA express contrary notion:ugly – plain – good-looking – pretty – beautiful
John Lines suggests:
proper hot-warm – tapped – cold
complementary antonyms only 2 words negative and assertionnot male - female.
In a context where one member of the antonymous pair can be used, it is as a rule, interchangeable with the other member. For ex., ‘dry’ and ‘wet’: ‘a wet shirt’ – ‘a dry shirt’. But the same antonyms are NOT interchangeable in ALL contexts: # ‘dry air’ – ‘wet air’, but: ‘dry lips’ – ‘moist lips’.
