e.g. parent / child , predecessor/ successor

问题: What are the characteristics of antonyms?

1) Antonyms are classified on the basis of semantic opposition

特例:Many words, though having synonyms, do not find their semantic opposites, e.g. read, hit, house, book, power, magazine. Therefore, in a language, there are a great many more synonyms than antonyms.

2) A word which has more than one meaning can have more than one antonym.

(这这个特点只适用于polysemous )

e.g. fast , dull

3) Antonyms differ in semantic inclusion.

(这里讲的包容性是指一个反义词必然包 含着另外一个反义词的绝对的概念)

e.g.man/ woman (man 除了指男性,还可以指整个人类, woman 算作人类的一 部分, 所以woman 也算在man 的范畴内,因此,woman 被man 所包容)

dog / bitch ( dog 除了指狗类通称,还可以指公狗, bitch是母狗, dog指狗类通称的时,bitch是狗的一种,因此我们说bitch必然被dog所包容,所以,它们之间存在着Semantic inclusion)

(语义上的包容性还没有考过)

e.g. tall/short, old /young

4) Contrary terms are gradable antonyms, differing in degree of intenisty, so each has its own corresponding opposite.

(特例)Some words can have two different types of antonyms at the same time, one being the negative and the other opposite,(未考过, 重要的选择或填空内容)

e.g. happy / unhappy/ sad ( happy/ unhappy 之间的反义关系是negative, happy/sad 之间的关系是opposite )

The use of Antonyms (通常用在习语当中)
e.g. rain or sine

high and low

easy come, easy go

名词解释:Hyponymy (未考过,很重要的概念)

Hyponymy : 1) hyponymy deals with the relationship of semantic inclusion.

2)That is to say, the meaning of a more specific word is included in that of another more general word.

3) These specific words are known as hyponyms. The general words are the superordinate terms and the more specific ones are subordinate terms.

注意:hyponyms 和 subordinate 都是指下义词.

比如说:考试给你hammer, saw, spanner这些词, 然后再给你tool这个词, 然后让你用语义关系的理论加以分析这组词?

分析: hammer, saw , spanner 都是specific word, 它们和tool 存在的关系是semantic inclusion , 所以tool 是一个superordinate , hammer, saw, spanner 属于subordinate 或者是hyponyms.

(用上下义语义关系进行理论分析的题,也是一个考试的要点)

hyponymy ( 它与语义场semantic field具有一定的联系)

注意: 上义词与下义词不是一成不变的, 也不是绝对的, 是一个相对的概念,不同的语义场就存在不同的上下义关系.

重点:Semantic Field (名词解释) (未考过)

Semantic Field: 1)The massive word store a language like English can be conceived of as composed around a number of meaning areas, some large, and others smaller. Viewing the total meaning in this way is the basis of field theory.

2) The German linguist Trier saw vocabulary as ‘an integrated system of lexemes interrelated in sense. Therefore, the ‘words of languages can be classified into semantically related sets or fields.

3) According to Trier’s vision of fields, the whole vocabulary can be divided up into fields.

4)Words in each field