Good, better and superb antonyms: a conceptual construal approach

PHENOMENA PART/WHOLE, THING, RELATION, BOUNDEDNESS, SCALE, DEGREE, POINT, FREQUENCY, FOCUS, PATH, ORDER, MODALITY , . Gestalt : e.g. structural schematization Salience : e.g. metonymization, generalization, profiling Comparison: e.g. metaphorization, categorization, analogy Perspective: e.g. foregrounding /backgrounding, subjectification Table 1. Ontologies and cognitive processes in meaning constru ction, adapted from Paradis (2005) . The Annual of Texts by Foreign Guest Professors. Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Philosophy and Arts. Both types of structures are conceptual pre-meaning s. Content structures involve meaning proper, i.e. meaning structures pertaining to THINGS, EVENTS and STATES, and configurations or schemas such as BOUNDNESS and SCALE. In addition to these conceptual representations, there is an operating system consisting of differen t types of construals such as assignment of focus of attention (salience) and Gestalt. Language put to use in human communication comes about through construal operation which are imposed on the concepts by speakers and addressees at the time of use. At that time, the de finite contextual meaning construal is established (Paradis 2004, 2005, 2008). A great dea l of flexibility is built into LOC in that configurational concepts are considered to be free structures that are mapped onto differen t content domains. This way of meaning modelling sets configuration free from contentful meanings. This also makes it possible for us to app ly different configurations of one and the same contentful meaning structure. For instance, th ere is the construal of different parts of speech on the basis of LENGTH, as in long, length and lengthen (Paradis 2005:546–549), or the construal of content structures on the basis of SCALE or BOUNDARY as in very bad, which is construed on the basis of a SCALE and completely bad where a BOUNDARY is profiled (Paradis 2008). Some meanings are more adaptable to different confi gurational construals. For instance, very long is perfectly felicitous, while completely long is strange. The advantage of LOC is that it is a highly dynamic model in which w e are able to handle conventionalized as well as more ad hoc couplings between configuration and content. Some lexical meanings are well suited for antonymic configuration construals in that they are inherently binary and have a built-in twon ess, e.g. male–female (Croft & Cruse 2004:164–165). However, this is not enough for a co nstrual of antonymy since opposability also involves an element of comparison. The contras ting meanings have to be opposed in discourse. Murphy (2003:45) argues for a general pr gmatic principle, the Relation-byContrast, governing all semantic relations, i.e. an tonymy, synonymy, co-hyponymy, hyponymy and meronymy. The principle defines relati ons on the basis of minimal differences. For antonyms the contrast relation hol ds among the members of a pair, if and only if they have the same contextually relevant pr ope ties but one. I take this pragmatic definition as my point of departure and complement it with my cognitive semantic approach to antonymy, which offers an explanation for antony my in language and thought and which also offers an account for why some lexical items t end to form set couplings. When two meanings are used as antonyms in a contex t, they are construed as representing two sides of a dimension of meaning, a d the binary contrast expressed is invoked through a process of comparison. LOC provid es us with a contentful dimension of meaning which might be LENGTH, EXISTENCE, GENDER and a BOUNDED configuration. This way, a dichotomy can be set up, and the two opposit es are located on either side of the boundary and contrasted through comparison in the c ontext where they occur. This means that according to this view, all antonyms are all equal in the sense that the category does not have internal structure – either a pair along a meaning dimension divided by a boundary is or is not a pair of antonyms, and they are only antonyms if t hey are used in binary opposition in a given context. Granted that antonyms are used to ex press binary opposition, any dimensionally alignable meanings can be construed a s a pair of antonyms, including everything from “What’s the opposite of riot? It’s lots of people keeping quiet . ” (Wilbur 1973:8) through pairings such us “it is neither good, nor bad” and negated oppositions “these flowers are both beautiful and not beautiful ”(Paradis & Willners 2006, forthcoming), or indeed construed in a fashion where one side of the contrast is left implicit, e.g. “I am not your maid! ”, which very clearly points up the opposite of wh at a maid is supposed to do. It deserves to be pointed out that this is not the cas for the corresponding affirmation, unless the expression is used ironically (Giora et al. 200 9, Giora et al. forthcoming). In order to be able to explain degrees of goodness of opposability , we need a modelling component of The Annual of Texts by Foreign Guest Professors. Charles University in Prague, Faculty of Philosophy and Arts. conceptual structures and an operational component for the profiling of meanings in use and interpretation. For this reason we turn our focus o f attention from antonymy as configuration to construal to antonymy in terms of content and st rength of lexico-semantic conventionalization in language.