PROBLEMS OF SYNONYMY AND ANTONYMY IN ENGLISH
Keywords:
synonymy, antonymy, English language, lexical-semantic relations, cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, connotation, gradable antonyms, polysemy, historical semantics, lexicography, pragmaticsAbstract
This article provides an in-depth scholarly analysis of synonymy and antonymy as fundamental lexical-semantic relations in the English language. It examines the nature of synonymy as partial rather than absolute equivalence, highlighting contextual, connotative, and stylistic differentiations, as well as the various types of antonymy gradable, complementary, and relational and their cognitive, corpus-based, and historical-semantic dimensions. Drawing on approaches from cognitive linguistics, corpus linguistics, lexicography, and psycholinguistics, the paper explores the complexity of these semantic relations, addressing problems arising from polysemy, register variation, historical change, pragmatic factors, and distributional asymmetries. Through examples from the rich lexical structure of English, the dynamic and context-dependent character of synonyms and antonyms is emphasized. The study concludes by pointing to promising directions for future research in the field.
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