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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Lingua Inglese 2
Lecture 4
DOTT.SSA MARIA IVANA LORENZETTI
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Relations of Opposition and Exclusion
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They can be further subdivided in:
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Relations of incompatibility and co-meronymy
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Opposites
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Incompatibility
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This relation concerns mutual exclusion of classes: if something is a
cat, then it follows that it cannot be a dog.
Incompatibles are terms which denote classes which share no
members
Co-hyponyms are not necessarily incompatible in the above sense:
queen and mother are both hyponyms of woman, but there is
nothing which prevents someone who is a queen from being also a
mother
Similarly, it might seem that novel and paperback can be considered
as compatible co-hyponyms of book. But in fact they are in a relation
of incompatibility, since they are hyponyms of different senses of
book.
Superordinate: Book → TOME
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Superordinate: Book → TEXT
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Hyponyms: paperback, hardback
Hyponyms: novel, biography, textbook
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Incompatibility (2)
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A relation of exclusion parallel to that between cohyponyms is the one which holds between comeronyms
If X and Z are parts of the same individual Y, then A
is a part of X unilaterally entails A is not a part of Z,
that is sister parts do not overlap.
Nose, cheek, chin of face, or wheel, engine and
chassis of a car do not overlap. The exclusion in
these cases is at least prototypically spatial: the
sister parts of an individual do not have any material
substance in common
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Opposites
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Opposites are incompatible terms of a special type, i.e. they are
contrasting terms, which differ along a specific dimensions. They are
usually mentioned in pairs.
Some properties of opposites are:
Binarity: opposites are incompatibles by definition, but there can
only be two members of a set of opposites.
Inherentness: it concerns a type of binarity which is pragmatic or
accidental, as opposed to something that is logical.
‰ 2 main sources of heat for cooking, i.e. gas and electricity, but
they do not represent opposite terms, because their binarity is the
result of contextual factors (other sources might be discovered in
the future).
‰ Movement along a vertical axis: the possibilities of movement in
this case are logically limited to two: the binarity of the pair updown is thus ineluctable, and the adjectives form a satisfactory
pair of opposites
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Typologies of Opposites
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Opposites fall into a number of relatively
clearly-defined types, the most important of
which are:
Complementaries
Antonyms
Directional Opposites
Converses
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Complementaries
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They constitute a very basic form of oppositeness and
show inherent binarity in its purest form.
Negating either terms in a complementary relation
logically implies the other term. So, if something falls
within a class, it cannot fall in the other.
Complementaries can be characterised by the following
logical relation
F(X) entails and is entailed by not-F(Y)
‰ The door is open → The door is not closed
‰ Mary passed the exam → Mary did not fail the exam
‰ The answer is not true → The answer is false
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Complementaries (2)
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They do not allow any intermediate term in between and
exhaustively divide a domain into two mutually exclusive
compartments. Cfr. *He is neither dead nor alive. / * The
answer is true, but also false.
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They are not gradable.
‰ *He is more alive than you.
‰ *He is moderately alive/very dead
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Some statements with complementaries can be used
with degree modification, but only in a figurative sense.
‰ What you say is very true → I agree with what you say
‰ He’s more dead than alive → He’s (probably) very ill.
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Some Examples of Complementaries
True-False
„ Open-Shut
„ Dead-Alive
„ Stationary-Moving
„ Male-Female
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Antonyms
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Antonyms (this term is also sometimes used
for the entire category of opposites) are
gradable adjectives i.e. they can be modified
without oddness by intensifiers such as very,
rather, extremely, and so on.
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Very good
quite easy
rather cold
extremely fast
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Antonyms (2)
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Unlike complementaries, they do not
exhaustively divide a domain in two. There is a
neutral area between them, which can be
described as neither belonging to any of them
LENGTH
long
short
neither long
nor short
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Antonyms (3)
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Members of a pair denote degrees of some variable
property, such as length speed, weight, accuracy
Antonyms normally have a marked and an
unmarked member. The marked member is used as
a reference point in questions
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How long is the ladder? → no presupposition as to length
of the ladder
How short is the ladder? → it presupposes that the ladder
is short
How good was the film? → neutral
How bad was the film? → I think the film was bad
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Antonyms
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Antonyms fall into several relatively welldefined groups:
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Polar Antonyms → long-short
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Overlapping Antonyms → good-bad
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Equipollent Antonyms → hot-cold
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Polar Antonyms
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They can occur in the comparative and superlative degrees:
long-longer-longest; light-lighter, lightest, but need to be
interpreted in relation to some reference value
They can indicate degrees of objective, usually measurable
properties.
They are fully gradable and occur with a variety of degree
modifiers, very, slightly, rather, quite, a bit, too, long
They are incompatibles, but not complementaries. It’s neither
long nor short is not a contradiction
Comparative forms stand in a converse relationship. If X and Y
are two polar antonyms, and A and B two nouns to which these
adjectives can be applied, saying A is X-er than B entails B is Yer than A.
‰ A is heavier than B → B is lighter than A
‰ Mary is younger than Tom → Tom is older than Mary
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Examples of Polar Antonyms
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Long-short;
Young/old
Fast-slow;
Wide-narrow;
Heavy-light;
Strong-weak;
Large-small;
Thick-thin;
High-low;
Deep-shallow
Difficult-easy
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Equipollent Antonyms
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The two other types of antonyms can be characterized by the
impartiality of their comparatives.
In the case of equipollent antonyms, neither term is impartial. Both
are committed. Therefore hotter presupposes hot
‰ ?X is hot, but it’s colder than Y
‰ ?X is cold, but it’s hotter than Y
Equipollent antonyms typically denote sensations or emotions, or
evaluations based on subjective reactions rather than on objective
standards
‰ happy-sad;
‰ proud of-ashamed of;
‰ hot-cold;
‰ bitter-sweet;
‰ painful-pleasurable
‰ nice-nasty
‰ pleasant-unpleasant
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Overlapping Antonyms
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The members of this class have an evaluative character, one
member being positive, the other derogatory.
Both terms are used in normal how-questions, but one term
yields an impartial question, while the other yields a committed
question. (How good is it?/how bad is it?)
good-bad;
kind-cruel;
clever-dull;
pretty-plain;
polite-rude
dirty-clean
honest/dishonest
dangerous/safe
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Directional Opposites
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They are of two main types:
Static direction, which include straightforward
directions and extremes along an axis
up-down;
backwards-forwards;
north-south;
into-out;
east-west
top-bottom
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Directional Opposites (2)
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Dynamic directional opposites, usually called reversives, are
represented by verbs denoting change or motion in opposite
directions
rise-fall;
advance-retreat;
increase-decrease;
lengthen-shorten;
dress-undress;
tie-untie;
mount-dismount;
enter-leave;
damage-repair
Appear-disappear
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Converses
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They are usually defined as a sub-type of directional opposites.
They can also be called relational opposites
Some of them have a salient directional character, such as
precede/follow; lend/borrow (the thing lent/borrowed moves
from/towards the person denoted by the subject), bequeath/inherit;
buy/sell (double movements of money and of goods)
Others have a less clear direction with movements
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Above-below;
In front of-behind
The tree is in front of the house
The house is behind the tree
Before-after
Buy-sell;
John sold the car to Bill for £.5000
Bill bought the car from John for £.5000
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Converses (2)
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Parent-offspring
Husband-wife
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John is Sarah’s husband.
Sarah is John’s wife.
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Lend-borrow
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Jim borrowed a bike from Tom
‰ Tom lend a bike to Jim
Both terms can be used to describe the same state of
affairs, A is above B means the same as B is below A,
except with respect to which element serves as a
reference point. Similarly A is B’s parent means the
same as B is A’s offspring
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Syntagmatic Relations
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These kinds of relations are better
understood in terms of constraints, and hold
among items which occur in the same
sentence with specific syntactic relations
A word cannot combine freely with just any
other word in the language
There are constraints on the combinability of
words:
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Syntactic constraints
Collocational constraints
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Syntagmatic Relations - Syntactic
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The word class label of a word, which is also shown
in its dictionary entry (noun, verb, adj, adv, prep etc)
is a designation of the syntactic operations that a
word can engage in
Combination of nouns and determiners – mass
nouns vs. countable nouns
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Some sugar will do
*a sugar
* many sugar
Sugar is a basic ingredient
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Syntagmatic Relations – Syntactic 2
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Nouns that are compatible with particular
post-modifiers
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His determination to succeed
His affection for Lucy/ *to Lucy
Her regret that he had failed
Position of adjectives – attribute vs.
predicate
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A mere boy vs. *that boy is mere
The boy is asleep vs. *an asleep boy
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Syntagmatic Relations – Syntactic 3
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Verbs and type of structure in which they can
occur (the kind of object, complements and
obligatory adjuncts)
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Do you remember Jim?
He remembered that he had phoned
He remembered to phone her
Do you remember who came?
I remember him bald
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Syntagmatic Relations - Collocational
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We refer to the term collocations to talk about two
types of combinability
The regular expectations that a word has for some
other words
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Describe a circle
Construct a triangle
Draw a perpendicular
Powerful motorcar
Strong coffee
Raise cattle
Bring up children
Good/strong likelihood; strong/high probability
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Syntagmatic Relations – Collocational
(2)
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The other sense of collocation refers to
semantic compatibilities between words
engaged in a particular syntactic function
It may be illustrated by Chomsky’s famous
sentence
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Colourless green ideas sleep furiously
The various semantic incompatibilities arise
from extra-linguistic reality, but they show
facts about the operation of words in the
language system
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Syntagmatic Relations – Collocational
(3)
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John R. Firth: “the company that words keep”
Collocation is a feature of all languages. At its
simplest, it is “what goes together with what”.
It is used in lexicology to refer to the habitual
co-occurrence of individual lexical items.
Weak collocations: good +…..
Strong Collocations: green jealousy; blue flu
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Syntagmatic Relations – Collocational
(4)
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A collocation can be made up of two or more words:
Verb + Noun
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Adjective + Noun
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Totally misunderstand
Adverb + Adjective
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Strong tea; powerful engine (*powerful tea; *strong engine)
Heavy traffic; heavy drinker
Adverb + Verb
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make a mistake; take a shower
Extremely grateful/generous; completely wrong
Adjective + Preposition
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Guilty of …-ing; crazy for; fond of; interested in
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Collocations
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Typical criteria for collocations:
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non-compositionality
non-substitutability
non-modifiability.
Collocations usually cannot be translated into
other languages word by word.
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Non-compositionality in Collocations
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A phrase is compositional if the meaning can predicted from the
meaning of the parts.
‰ new companies
A phrase is non-compositional if the meaning cannot be
predicted from the meaning of the parts
‰ hot dog
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Collocations are not necessarily fully compositional in that there
is usually an element of meaning added to the combination. Eg.
strong tea.
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Idioms are the most extreme examples of non-compositionality.
Eg. to hear it through the grapevine.
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Non-Substitutability in Collocations
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We cannot substitute near-synonyms for the
components of a collocation.
For example
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We can’t say yellow wine instead of white wine even
though yellow is as good a description of the color of white
wine as white is (it is kind of a yellowish white).
Many collocations cannot be freely modified with
additional lexical material or through grammatical
transformations (Non-modifiability).
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E.g. white wine, but not whiter wine
mother in law, but not mother in laws
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Syntagmatic Relations – Collocational
(5)
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Collocations can undergo a fossilization process
until they become fixed expressions (or idioms)
BLUE
‰ Blue film: film a luci rosse
‰ Blue Funk: fifa nera
‰ Blue jeans: blue jeans
‰ Blue blood: sangue blu
‰ To feel blue: sentirsi giù
‰ Out of the blue: inaspettatamente
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Collocations and Semantic Integrity
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The semantic integrity of a collocation is more marked, if
the meaning of one of its constituent is restricted
contextually
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Heavy
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Heavy Drinker
Heavy Smoker
That car is heavy on petrol
Heavy weight
Heavy Rain
Consumption
Sense
Quantity
Sense
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Lecture 4 - 04/03/2008
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Syntagmatic Relations – Collocational
(6)
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RED
‰ Red wine: vino rosso
‰ To see red: non vederci più dalla rabbia
‰ To catch sb red-handed: cogliere in
flagrante
‰ To be in the red: essere al verde (o
avere il conto in banca in rosso)
‰ Red-light district: quartiere a luci rosse
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Derivational Relations
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These kind of relations are those found between words forming part
of a set of paradigmatic choices
They have a role in structuring the vocabulary of a language, since
they manifest in the so-called word-families, or words derived from
a single root.
1.
Cook (v. tr)
I am cooking supper
2.
Cook (v. intr.)
Can you cook?
3.
Cook (v. intr.)
The chicken is cooking.
4.
Cook (n)
Jane is a good cook.
5.
Cooker (n)
We’ve bought a new cooker.
6.
Cooking (n)
John is in love with Mary’s cooking.
7.
Cookery (n)
John is taking cookery lessons
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Lingua Inglese 2 (CInt) A.A. 2007/08
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Derivational Relations (2)
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The semantic relations between these words are partly
systematic and partly arbitrary.
If we think of the relationship between cook in 3 and cooker, the
suffix -er of cooker seems to have an instrumental meaning (a
cooker is something used for cooking), but if we cook chicken
over a fire, the fire does not become a cooker for that reason
So there is some specialization in the derivation of the word
cooker from cook, since a barbecue is not a cooker, nor is a
microwave oven
Considering the relation between cook in 1, 2, 3: in 3 the verb
refers to the fact that the chicken is undergoing heating
treatment, so as to be more tasty as a food. 2 is not just asking
whether John can cause food to undergo heat treatment, but
asks if he has certain abilities
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