Friday 18 March 2011

Design is about doing.Letter,word,sentence,paragraph.

In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow. The notion of incompatibility here refers to the fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not the other pair member. For example, something that is long entails that it is not short. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members in a set of opposites. The relationship between opposites is known as opposition. A member of a pair of opposites can generally be determined by the question What is the opposite of X ?The term antonym (and the
related antonymy) has also been commonly used as a term that is synonymous with opposite; however, the term also has other more restricted meanings. One usage has antonym referring to both gradable opposites, such aslong : short, and (non-gradable) complementary opposites, such as male : female, while opposites of the types up : down and precede : follow are excluded from the definition.

A third usage (particularly that of the influential Lyons 1968, 1977) defines the term antonym as referring to only gradable opposites (the long : short type) while the other types are referred to with different terms. Therefore, as Crystal (2003) warns, the terms antonymy and antonym should be regarded with care. In this article, the usage of Lyons (1963, 1977) and Cruse (1986, 2004) will be followed where antonym is restricted to gradable opposites and opposite is used as the general term referring to any of the subtypes discussed below.


General discussion

Opposites are, interestingly, simultaneously different and similar in meaning. Typically, they differ in only one dimension of meaning, but are similar in most other respects, including similarity in grammar and positions of semantic abnormality. Additionally, not all words have an opposite. Some words are non-opposable. For example, animal or plant species have no binary opposites (other than possible gender opposites such as lion/lioness, etc.); the word platypus therefore has no word that stands in opposition to it (hence the unanswerability of What is the opposite of platypus?).

Other words are opposable but have an accidental gap in a given language's lexicon. For example, the word devout lacks a lexical opposite, but it is fairly easy to conceptualize a parameter of devoutness where devout lies at the positive pole with a missing member at the negative pole. Opposites of such words can nevertheless sometimes be formed with the prefixes un- or non-, with varying degrees of naturalness. For example, the word undevout appears in Webster's dictionary of 1828, while the pattern of non-person could conceivably be extended to non-platypus.

Opposites may be viewed as a special type of incompatibility.Words that are incompatible create the following type of entailment (where X is a given word and Y is a different word incompatible with word X):

sentence A is X entails sentence A is not Y

An example of an incompatible pair of words is cat : dog:

It's a cat entails It's not a dog

This incompatibility is also found in the opposite pairs fast : slow and stationary : moving, as can be seen below:

It's fast entails It's not slow
It's stationary entails It's not moving.

Common opposites.

add – subtract

addition - subtraction

afraid - brave

agree - disagree

ahead - behind

alive - dead

alone - crowd

alone - group

ancient - modern

Angel - Devil

around - through

arrive - leave

awake - asleep

bent - straight

big - little

blow - suck

blunt - sharp

boring - interesting

boy - girl

boy - man

break - fix

bride - groom

bring - remove

buy - sell

calm - emotional

careful - careless

casual - formal

centre - edge

cheerful - grumpy

cheers - jeers

close to - away from

cold - hot

colour – colourless

combined - separated

come - go

comedy - tragedy

confident - worried

correct - incorrect

courteous - rude

crazy - lucid

create - destroy

crooked - straight

curly - straight

damage - repair

day - night

drunk - sober

dry - wet

East - West

easy - hard

empty - full

enlarge - reduce

expand - contract

fat – skinny/thin/slim

first - last

float - sink

front - back

frozen - melted

giant - midget

girl - woman

give - take

good - bad

Grandma - Grandad

grow - shrink

guys & gals (slang)

hairy - bald

happy - sad

hard - soft

head - feet

heads - tails

Heaven - Hell

help - hinder

hero - villain

hide - seek

high - low

his - her

hit - miss

hot - cold

huge - tiny

ill - well

in - out

in front - in back

insane - sane

into - out of

King - Queen

Ladies - Gentlemen

large - small

laugh - cry

lead - follow

left - right

life - death

light - dark

lit - unlit

long - short

lots - little bit

love - hate

make - ruin

man - woman

many - few

maximise - minimise

me - you

Men - Women

Mum - Dad

more - less

most - least

Mother - Father

moving - still

multiplication - division

multiply - divide

naked - clothed

near - far

neat - messy

new - old

normal - strange

North - South

off - on

open - close

open - shut

order – chaos/mayhem

outside - inside

over - under

pass - fail

plain - fancy

plump - lean

plus - minus

polite - impolite

positive - negative

pretty - ugly

proud - disappointed

push - pull

quiet - loud

raw - cooked

real - imaginary

real - pretend

rich - poor

right - wrong

same - different

scared - brave

send - receive

shallow - deep

sick - healthy

silent - noisy

simple - complicated

simple - difficult

Sister - Brother

slow - fast

smile - frown

some - none

son - daughter

Spring - Fall

stand - sit

stand up - sit down

stiff - limp

stingy - generous

stop - go

succeed - fail

success - failure

sun - moon

sweet - sour

take off - land

tall - short

throw - catch

tied - untied

to - from

together - apart

top - bottom

towards - away from

undressed - dressed

united - divided

up - down

us - them

walk - run

war - peace

whisper - shout

white - black

wide awake - sleepy

wild - tame

win - lose

work - play

wrap - unwrap

write - erase

yes - no

young - old


Examples of opposites.




Book of Opposites

A silk-screened book on opposites, using collaged portraits that are almost the same, but conveying two different meanings.







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