"justify"> Group of antonyms is the type of semantic relation between lexical units having opposite meanings. Antonyms do not simply involve complete difference in meanings. It involves a sense opposition which can be applied to the same object or phenomenon.
Antonyms (Greek anti - opposite, onyma - name) are words belonging to the same part of speech, identical in style and having opposite denotative meanings. For example: light - dark; happiness - sorrow; up - down. Antonyms are usually believed to appear in pairs. Yet, this is not true in reality. For instance, the adjective cold may be said to have warm for its second antonym, and the noun sorrow may be very well contrasted with gaiety. [18, p.28]
However, polysemantic word may have an antonym or several antonyms for each of its meanings. So, the adjective dull has the antonym interesting, amusing, entertaining and active for its meaning of deficient in interest, and clever, bright, capable for its meaning of deficient in intellect and active for its meaning of deficient in activity. Antonyms are not evenly distributed among the categories of parts of speech. Most antonyms are adjectives, which seems to be natural, because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted. For example: high - low, strong - weak, wide - narrow, friendly - hostile. Verbs take the second place, so far as antonym is concerned. For example: to lose - to find, to live - to die, to open - to close. Nouns are not rich in antonyms. For example: good - evil, love - hatred.
Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided into two groups:
a) adverbs derived from adjectives: warmly - coldly, loudly - softly;
b) adverbs proper: now - then, ever - never, in - out.
This gives up rights to speak about morphological classification of antonyms.
1.2 Morphological Classification of Antonyms
have traditionally been defined as words of opposite meaning. This definition, however, is not sufficiently accurate as it only shifts the problem to the question of what words may be regarded as words of opposite meaning. Therefore the latest linguistic investigations emphasize, that antonyms are similar as words belonging to the same part of speech and the same semantic field, having the same grammatical meaning and functions, as well as similar collocations. [14]
According to their morphological structure antonyms may be classified into:
· root antonyms (having different roots): to love - to hate, long - short, day - night;
· derivational antonyms (having the same roots but different derivational affixes): regular - irregular, fruitful - fruitless. [18, 14, 26]
Absolute or Root Antonyms So, VN Comissarov in his dictionary of antonyms classified them into two groups: absolute or root antonyms and derivational antonyms.
Absolute antonyms have different roots and derivational antonyms have the same roots but different affixes. [60]
We can find in Collins Cobuild dictionary such definition: The antonym of word is another word which means the opposite. [78]
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