How do we know the world around us? Through images, sensations and words. The vocabulary of a child is formed in early childhood and continues to replenish throughout life. This process should not be left to chance, it is necessary to connect to it in a playful way, and then the baby will not only replenish his piggy bank of words, but will also begin to notice something more in the world around him. In particular, the game of antonyms, that is, in “Opposites”, will be an excellent exercise in the development of imaginative thinking. Many people remember this fun from their childhood: one player calls the word, and the other - its antonym. The game continues until the antagonist words end. Well, or until you get tired.
Name and meaning
How did the antipodes words with which our speech is so rich today get their name? The word "antonym" came to us from Greece, it consists of two parts: the first part antii is translated as "against"; the second part of onyma means "name". The general meaning is the “opposite name”.
As a rule, antonyms come from one part of speech, are pronounced and written in completely different ways, and are absolutely opposite in meaning words. Not all words have a pair in the form of antonym, but in our great and powerful majority of objects have an antipode.
Examples can be easily found: black - white; day Night.
So, words that are opposite in meaning are called antonyms. They belong to a certain part of speech, and they can be asked the same questions. Antonyms consider the properties of an object, sign or action from a single plane, paying attention to certain characteristics, but they are antipodes in meaning. These opposites are formed into pairs, and the combination of words that are opposite in meaning is called antonymic pairs: pure truth - dirty lie.
Morphological differences
We pass to morphology. Carrying out a morphological analysis of antonymic pairs, Rusologists found out that antonyms are divided into two types according to a structural feature:
- The first type: multi-root, in the composition of the words of which there are no any common components. For example: courageous - feminine (adjectives). Accordingly, a man is a woman (nouns);
- The second type: single-root, obtained by adding prefixes to the common root that have anti-meaning: enter the house - leave the house; or prefixes attached to the main word: literate - illiterate; polite - impolite; stress is antistress.
Ambiguity - uniqueness
In Russian, there are ambiguous words that behave differently:
- Option one: a certain antonym is attached to each of its semantic meanings of the word "attached." For example: cold - warm (floor), cold - warm (reception), cold - warm (look). Here, the words that are opposite in meaning are paired.
- Option two: when the different meanings of the word correspond to different antonyms. For example: soft - hard (character), soft - sharp (voice), soft - bright (light), soft - hard (earth). In this case, the words that are opposite in meaning do not constitute a rigidly fixed union and depend on the context.
Important! Care must be taken not to confuse the ambiguous words and homonyms.
Multivalued words have two or more lexical meanings, united by a common meaning.
As for homonyms, their spelling and pronunciation are equal, but the meaning has nothing to do: turn the key in the door - the key beats out of the ground.
About relationship
Antonyms have many "secrets" regarding attitudes to various categories. Consider them:
- relation to time: the end of the work - the beginning of the business early rise - late rise; daytime sleep - nighttime sleep;
- attitude to space: to be far away - to be close; go left - go right; to be inside - to be outside;
- attitude to quality (feelings, age): to feel love - to hate; show anger - show kindness; cheerful child - a sad child; young man - old man;
- relation to quantity: a lot of fruits - few fruits; excess of feelings - lack of feelings; sell expensive - sell cheap.
Semantic subtleties
Speaking of antonyms or words that are opposite in meaning, one cannot but mention the subtleties of semantic nuances inherent in this category of the Russian language. Among them are:
- Contradictory view of antonyms. Here, only the starting and ending points are available, there are no transitions between them: start - finish.
- Contrast view of antonyms. There is an intermediate point between the starting and ending points: cold - warm - hot.
- Vector type of antonyms. They are characterized by the opposite orientation of distinctive features, activities, manifestations: scientific - anti-scientific; left - arrived.
- Conversive view of antonyms. In this case, the opposite view is presented on the object (subject) or occupation: to study at school - to teach at school; find time - lose time.
- Type of enantiosemia. Here, the semantic meaning of the antonym is diametrically opposite when the phrase structure coincides: borrowed a notebook from a friend - loaned a notebook to a friend.
Parts of speech
It is not always possible to choose words that are opposite in meaning: they are not among the numerals, pronouns, and also among proper names. It should also be remembered that antonyms form pairs only within the boundaries of their part of speech, namely:
- among nouns: night is day, fidelity is betrayal, health is disease.
- Among the adjectives: black - white, fast - slow, deceitful - truthful; light - heavy, sick - healthy, hard - soft, cold - hot;
- among the verbs: advancing - retreating, approaching - moving away, heating - cooling, closing - opening, living - dying, lighting - stewing;
among adverbs: in winter - in summer, far - close, high - low, dark - light, hot - cold, rarely - often, slowly - quickly.
Words of the opposite meaning are often included in the content of works by writers and poets: thanks to these words, texts become more vivid and figurative. The authors use the so-called contextual antonyms that clarify the meaning of a phrase or a voluminous text, as a result of which the character description of the characters is more voluminous.
Antonyms are also widely used in folk wisdom: proverbs and sayings.
Thus , the importance of antagonistic words for Russian speech is difficult to overestimate. Therefore, it is so important to formulate the vocabulary of a child from early childhood, showing him the possibilities of the Russian language.