Monday 28 September 2015

Misconstruing Antonymy

Martin (1992: 301-2):
One further category that needs to be brought in here is antonymy.  Whereas synonyms are co-hyponyms for which differences in meaning may not matter, antonyms are co-hyponyms for which they must — because the items in question are opposed in meaning rather than complementing each other

Blogger Comments:

[1] Definitionally, synonyms are not types (hyponyms) of co-hyponyms.  In SFL theory, synonymy is a lexical means of creating cohesion in discourse.

[2] Definitionally, antonyms are not types (hyponyms) of co-hyponyms.  In SFL theory, antonymy is a lexical means of creating cohesion in discourse.

[3] Complementing is most generally concerned with completion, and often involves not just opposites (e.g. art: complementary colours), but contradiction (e.g. physics: particle-wave-field).  Halliday (2008: 84):
In the most general sense, complementarity is a special form of complexity; one can think of it perhaps as the management of contradiction.