Corpus methods for the investigation of antonyms across languages

• This chapter proposes an onomasiological research methodology forcross-linguistic investigations of antonyms. The basic assumption is that thereis a number of strongly opposable lexical semantic pairings in all languages,whose meanings are central to human existence, e.g. speed slow–fast, luminosity, dark–light, strength weak–strong, size small–large. There is also a large number of other pairings that are frequently used as antonyms in discourse, but for various different reasons they are not as strongly coupled as the canonical ones. The meaning dimensions of the canonical pairings, e.g. speed, luminosity, strength, size, are used as the point of departure for the typological research program to identify the use of the antonymic words in different combinations and in different semantic frames in a principled way across languages and cultures. Large scale studies carried out along the lines proposed will make it possible to produce a typological antonym atlas of the formal realization of antonym pairs and their usage patterns, at the same time as it will allow us to make statements about the role of binary opposition in language and cognition more generally.

Ämnesord

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

Publikations- och innehållstyp

kap (ämneskategori)

ref (ämneskategori)