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Title:
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Antonyms in English and Modern Greek: A cognitive approach
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Author:
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Pat Togia
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Email:
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click here to access email
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Degree Awarded:
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University of Manchester
, Department of Linguistics
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Degree Date:
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1996
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Linguistic Subfield(s):
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Semantics
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Subject Language(s):
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English
Greek
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Director(s):
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Alan Cruse
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Abstract:
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The present thesis is concerned, on the one hand, with a comparative analysis of the semantic properties and characteristics of antonym pairs such as, long/short, hot/cold, good/bad, and clean/dirty in English and Modern Greek and on the other, with the development of a cognitive model of antonymy based on the regularities observed in the behaviour of antonym pairs in the two languages. The former task can be described as language-specific, while the latter can be described as language-universal. The process, thus, underlying the present thesis is one that develops from language-specific facts and insights to general statements concerning a linguistic phenomenon.
An important problem in developing a cognitive model of antonymy is how to account for impartial and committed uses of members of antonym pairs. Cruse (1986, 1992) has formulated such a model for English antonym adjectives according to which impartiality can be adequately explained if three basic patterns are assumed to operate in the organization of the scale schemas underlying a pair of antonyms. These patterns are: The polar, the equipollent, and the overlapping patterns. The power of each of the above patterns of activating impartial readings of an antonym term are most clearly seen in the contexts of expressions of comparison, degree questions, and nominalizations.
The basis for the comparison of English and Modern Greek antonym pairs is provided by the work of Cruse (1976, 1980, 1986, 1992) on English antonym adjectives. Only the last of these works was expressly couched in cognitive terms, and it was this line of thinking I attempted to enlarge upon in the formation of a cognitive model of antonymy. The cognitive model of antonymy developed in the present thesis aims at showing that aspects of behaviour which previously presented themselves as extremely interesting but unexplained, are revealed as motivated by general cognitive principles.
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