Functioning of compound antonyms in modern English - Курсовая работа

Functioning of compound antonyms in modern English Introduction The subject-matter of the Course Paper is to investigate lexico-semantic features of antonyms in modern English. The topicality of the problem under investigation results from the necessity to update basic assumption provided by different linguists in order to be able to establish the classification of antonyms depending on their morphological and semantic classifications in Modern English. The novelty of the problem arises from the necessity of a profound scientific investigation of antonyms. The main aim of the Course Paper is to summarize and systemize different approaches to the study of antonyms in Modern English. The aim of the course Paper presupposes the solutions of the following tasks: · To expand and update the definition of the term “antonym” · To reveal characteristic features of modern cognitive linguistics · To establish the difference between different kinds of antonyms · To have some skills of recognizing all categories of antonyms According the tasks of the Course Paper its structure is arranged in the following way: Introduction, the Main Part, Conclusion, Resume, Literature, test of Reference Material, List of Electronic References. In the Introduction we provide the explanation of the theme choice, state the topicality of it, establish the main aim, and the practical tasks of the Paper. In the main part we analyze the character features of modern the classification of antonyms depending on their morphological and semantic classifications, differences between absolute (or root) antonyms and derivational antonyms, main characteristics of antonyms proper, complementaries and converives. For example: “light” - “dark”; “happiness” - “sorrow”; “up” - “down”. Antonyms are usually believed to appear in pairs. Yet, this is not true in reality. For instance, the adjective “cold” may be said to have “warm” for its second antonym, and the noun “sorrow” may be very well contrasted with “gaiety”. [18, p.28] However, polysemantic word may have an antonym or several antonyms for each of its meanings. So, the adjective “dull” has the antonym “interesting”, “amusing”, “entertaining” and “active” for its meaning of “deficient in interest”, and “clever”, “bright”, “capable” for its meaning of “deficient in intellect” and “active” for its meaning of “deficient in activity”. Antonyms are not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives, which seems to be natural, because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted. For example: “high”- “low”, “strong” - “weak”, “wide” - “narrow”, “friendly” - “hostile”. Verbs take the second place, so far as antonym is concerned. For example: “to lose” - “to find”, “to live” - “to die”, “to open” - “to close”. Nouns are not rich in antonyms. For example: “good” - “evil”, “love” - “hatred“. Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups: a) adverbs derived from adjectives: “warmly” - “coldly”, “loudly” - “softly”; b) adverbs proper: “now” - “then”, “ever” - “never”, “in” - “out”. [18] This gives up rights to speak about morphological classification of antonyms. 1.2 Morphological Classification of Antonyms 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. Therefore the latest linguistic investigations emphasize, that antonyms are similar as words belonging to the same part of speech and the same semantic field, having the same grammatical meaning and functions, as well as similar collocations. [14] According to their morphological structure antonyms may be classified into: · root antonyms (having different roots): “to love” - “to hate”, “long” - “short”, “day” - “night”; · derivational antonyms (having the same roots but different derivational affixes): “regular” - “irregular”, “fruitful” - “fruitless”. “come” - “go”, “arrive” -“depart”.[80] L. Lipka also points out non-binary contrast or many-member lexical sets.