Canonical Antonyms - Research Paper Example

Canonical Antonyms Introduction Several semantically contrasting word duos are more probable to be viewed as standard antonyms than others are. Examples include canonical ones like cold and hot; sad and happy; and young and old as opposed to the non-canonical ones like scorching and icy; miserable and happy; hot and freezing; youthful and aged; and fiery and cold (Murphy 52). Antonyms are predisposed to support various grammatical frameworks, for example, A and B alike, either A or B and from A to B and to provide a narrow array of communication purposes. The hypothesis is that when an antonym word duo is canonical, the better the reliability it has to provide the grammatical frameworks. Canonical antonyms are investigated through opinion tests, word connection tests, and extraction tests (Grassmayr 36). Within the context of good grammatical language, the canonical antonyms occur together with one another by means of credible constructions better than other word pairs with possible semantics. The diagnostics of canonical antonyms are found out through grammatical word structures and the strengths of language semantics. Words that have opposing meanings may have contrasting viewpoints but that does not necessarily mean that they are canonical antonyms. The paradigm of the application of English language semantics that provides the meaning of words, opposites, and adjectives rely on canonical antonyms. This is evident through dictionaries and thesaurus that provide the basic values and meanings of words and their antonyms, which should have a canonic point of view (Vas 79). The Linguistic Framework of Canonical Antonyms Antonym word duos refer to any two words that contrast semantically to each other by virtue of having dissimilar meanings, for example, warm and chilly. A canonic antonym refers to two words that are affiliated because of being together with semantic correlation, for instance, public and private. Therefore, canonic antonyms are twosome words that have lexicon frameworks in the language whose combinations make sense by default without necessarily having to adhere to semantic tenets (Storjohann 89). The conventional way to which canonical antonyms pair with each other occur in a broad array of word contexts in that they do not contrast just because of being in a single phrase. Therefore, poor and rich are more probable to contain a canonic perspective as opposed to rags and riches. To reciprocate the relatedness of the words is also considered to have a canonic affiliation. For instance, searches may show that the best antonym of both rapid and fast is slow. However, the word slow can best reciprocate the word fast as the canonic antonym but not the word rapid. Therefore, the assumption is that the strong point of a canonic antonym can be quantified through the regularity of affiliation between two words and more imperatively through the credibility of the pairing (Jones et al 132). Generally, the research conducted on canonic antonyms has its premise founded either on the outcomes of meta-linguistic doings or on searches based on the body framework known as the corpus. To commence with the former, it has been stated that users of linguistics can instinctively acknowledge the ideal or proper antonyms from the ones that are not so blatantly proper. This is mostly known as the clang phenomenon to illustrate the result of the canonic antonym word duos that instinctively hit the listener as being the correct opposites. An example of meta-linguistics advancements is validated through inquiring people to give their opinions concerning the antonyms of words in the scale of one to five. The majority of people would say that minimize and maximize are the perfect canonic antonyms followed by bad and good, and day and night. A lesser express method of identifying canonic antonyms is shown through tests of word associations to acquire the instincts from people concerning the relationship of antonyms. In these tests, individuals are asked to state the first word that comes to their minds when they hear or read a word that spurs an instinct of canonic antonyms (Jones 143). From these words, majorities of people educe that outside and inside, as well as wrong and right are actually the perfect antonyms with one another. This proves that the stimulus of contrasting the adjectives has the outcome of being overwhelmed by a certain spur in people that certain words are the ideal antonyms of one another as opposed to other words. However, tests that attempt to get the opinions and judgments of antonyms, as well as the ones that reduce through elucidation experiments have a meta-linguistic perspective. This is because they do not evaluate how linguistics is used, but how individuals perceive the meanings of certain words and the affiliation that exists among each another (Storjohann 96). The research conducted on the framework of the body of linguistics, known as the corpus- based research; evaluate antonyms from the use of the basic natural language. Many individuals have considered the co-occurrence of words as the prime indicator of canonic antonyms. This starting point appears to be realistic especially because antonyms occur together with one another within statements more frequently than opportunity would present itself (Jones et al 132). In addition to this, the most ideal and perfect antonyms that are direct opposites have been shown to occur together naturally three to a dozen times more frequently than usual. Other word duos that make sense in feasible semantics within the angle of the same scales occur together only from around 1.5 times more frequently than usual. On the other hand, the fact that words occur together is not the main single approach and measure of classifying antonyms because many word duos occur together, for example, climate and change, and surf and net. These words are not necessarily contrasting in nature or have an opposite affiliation with one another yet they can exist together in the same statement (Vas 74). Antonyms are discernible from other angles since they have a tendency of being present in an array of certain grammatical structures with lexicon frameworks. Similarly, these antonyms appear to serve minimal communication functions within statements. Neither meta-linguistic characteristics nor occurring together in statements is the necessary decisive factor of identifying if antonyms are canonic. The former is most inclined towards the fundamental word duos with a lexicon perspective by virtue of words can only have one ideal canonic antonym. An illustration is evident when someone is asked what the antonym of hot is and they say it that it is cold without bearing in mind that hot may also mean spicy and cold will not be compatible antonym (Grassmayr 68). Corpus research is better to handle when having several opposite words, but most presently have looked for identified canonical antonym word duos and matched them up with opposite pairs that are deemed canonical to a smaller extent. Therefore, they have not given a precise mechanism to explore antonym word duos as a means of identifying existing instincts concerning the affiliation between the antonyms. Because they measure the regularity of antonyms existing together as pairs, they are also more likely to regard canonic antonyms as having words that are more common and with sensible meaning as opposites (Murphy 87). Studies in linguistics unite the best characteristics of both reducing and corpus mechanisms but evade some of their affiliated problems. The approach adopted here can be considered as an antonym elicitation endeavor that reduces antonyms from a body of the normal English language. This procedure fundamentally involves three steps. The first step entails identifying various constructions of grammar known as frames through which antonym word duos are acknowledged to occur together occur frequently. An example of this is A and B alike. The second step entails looking for the frames contained with an array of single describing words like adjectives in either the A or the B position. An example of this is thin and a wildcard alike. The third step entails evaluating which adjectives are retrieved more often within the position of the wildcard. An example of this is thick, overweight, heavy, or fat (Jones et al 135). Therefore, the criterion of antonym word pairs occurs together was utilized. However, the better approach was considered for filtering the word pairs with the strongest declarations of canonic antonyms from the ones that contrast or simply occur together within a limited array of colloquial contexts. The outcomes of meta-linguistic tests are utilized here for relative purposes only, but the main objective is to benefit the proof provided by the ordinary language use in its place (Murphy 134). Linguistic research conducted on canonic antonyms endorses the notion that contrasting word duos may rather be purely antonymic instead of being both antonymic and not antonymic at the same time. The research has equally looked into the capabilities for these affiliations to be recognized through corpus means and for the strength of their connection to be measured. To commence with the issue of whether a sequence of lexicon grammatical structures can be utilized as correct analyses of antonyms and for that reason as a dependable gauge of being canonical, research shows that the method tested was indeed very suitable (Jones 129). The structures used in research are successful in retrieving a variety of contrast words for every seed word. A strong connection emerges between those words retrieved most often and the descriptive words noted as the best opposites in tests of elicitation. For instance, nine out of ten words selected at random during research have the describing word retrieved more frequently in searches. This is equivalent to the describing word naturally matched with the seed word by the largest numbers of people in the context of linguistics (Jones et al 127). Although many antonyms searched on the internet are retrieved at very low numbers such as boring and exciting, these numbers are still more than any other describing word acknowledged. Therefore, they continue being indicative of the consistency of the structures used. The word thin does not retrieve the word fat as its spontaneous antonym more often. However, the word thick is the antonym of thin that is secondly retrieved more often in elicitation tests. In the internet search, the word fat ranked second as the antonym of thin. Therefore, it can be logically be deduced that the lexicon grammatical structures utilized in this case are joint, a perfect diagnostic of the antonym connection, because they involve antonyms that occur together (Murphy 103). Linguistic research has managed to shed more light on antonyms and their connections with one another in terms of canonic antonyms. It was assumed that when word pairs occur together they became one of the main causes of becoming antonyms of each other. However, more research conducted on antonyms has proven that it can also be viewed as a prime indicator. Similarly, it can be used in view of that to measure the strength of the connection of antonyms. The manner through which antonyms occur together with one another is past collocation. Therefore, it is conclusive that when antonyms occur together more frequently, it cuts through a wide array of antonym frames and becomes a better measure of canonic antonyms. This is either by means of meta-linguistic tests or by means of quantifying raw frequency (Jones et al 146). One of the main objectives of this paper is equally to assess whether the internet is an appropriate corpus for research of finding out about canonic antonyms. The advantages are self-explanatory because even the biggest of corpora present at this time available cannot be used to attain significant conclusions. This is concerning the inclination of minimal frequency antonyms to occur together in minimal frequency structures. If this method be applied to a usual corpus, the threshold of canonic antonyms in the frames may not have been attained by any word duos. For instance, neither of the two most canonical word duos like small and large, as well as rich and poor reach the threshold in the frames (Vas 52). It is evident that this threshold was self-determined and for that reason, could have been minimized. However, this would have significantly compromised the dependability of the research particularly if the occurrence of antonyms together could not be illustrated to cross different forms of antonym structures. This notion is similar to the antonyms having different communication purposes. On the other hand, the drawbacks of using internet information when looking for canonic antonyms should not be taken too lightly. As noted earlier, the internet search engines are very particular and are rather narrow in their methods of retrieval. Therefore, the textual content of the internet may be uneven, recurring and unrepresentative (Grassmayr 129) Conclusion Indeed, this research paper on canonic antonyms is open to enlargement in numerous ways within the linguistics framework. There has been piloting of several possible structures from the ones acknowledged in preceding corpus-based researches of antonyms. The main thesis has been settled on the ones that retrieved contrasting words with the highest dependability and minimal unreliability. However, it may be evident that as antonym word duos change with time, so do their preferential lexicon grammatical backgrounds as well. Therefore, other textual structures may be integrated for the canonic antonyms (Jones 121). Preferably, every frame would equally be measured in accordance with the strength of its antonym connection. This is so that a more refined measurement of canonic antonyms would be achieved. In terms of advanced research, the prospect now begins to compare antonyms that have been searched through the internet with those recommended by dictionary or recognized by the lexicon referencing methods for instance WordNet (Vas 68). In addition to this, the linguistic researchers of canonic antonyms are presently conducting new research. This is to find out if the methods utilized in this case may manage to retrieve productively antonyms in other languages apart from English, which have lower representations on the internet. Therefore, this research paper has managed in proving that the textual characteristics of antonyms are conventional. It has equally illustrated that patterns of antonyms occurring together facilitate pairings to be recognized and degrees of being canonic to be measured. However, it is just a preliminary step towards a greater understanding of the antonym connection and its purpose in communication (Jones et al 152). Works Cited Grassmayr, Jacqueline. Canon Reloaded. Cambridge, Port Melbourne: Cambridge University Press, 2013. Print. Jones, Steven. Antonyms in English: Construals, Constructions, and Canonicity. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2012. Print. Jones, Steven, Carita Paradis, Lynne Murphy, and Caroline Willners. Googling for ‘opposites’: a web-based study of antonym canonicity. Edinburgh, Scotland: Edinburgh University Press, 2007. Print. Murphy, Lynne. Semantic Relations and the Lexicon: Antonymy, Synonymy, And Other Paradigms. Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 2003. Print. Storjohann, Petra. Lexical-Semantic Relations: Theoretical and Practical Perspectives. Amsterdam, Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publications, 2010. Print. Vas, Gratian. Antonyms. New Delhi, India: Sterling Publishers, 2006. Print. Read More