unman», «to disappoint» is not an antonym of the word «to appoint».
The difference between derivational and root antonyms is not only in
their structure, but in semantics as well. Derivational antonyms express
contradictory notions, one of them excludes the other, e.g. «active»-
«inactive». Absolute antonyms express contrary notions. If some notions
can be arranged in a group of more than two members, the most distant
members of the group will be absolute antonyms, e.g. «ugly» , «plain»,
«good-looking», «pretty», «beautiful», the antonyms are «ugly» and
«beautiful».
Leonard Lipka in the book «Outline of English Lexicology» describes
different types of oppositeness, and subdivides them into three types:
a) complementary, e.g. male -female, married -single,
b) antonyms, e.g. good -bad,
c) converseness, e.g. to buy - to sell.
In his classification he describes complimentarity in the following way:
the denial of the one implies the assertion of the other, and vice versa.
«John is not married» implies that «John is single». The type of
oppositeness is based on yes/no decision. Incompatibility only concerns
pairs of lexical units.
Antonymy is the second class of oppositeness. It is distinguished from
complimentarity by being based on different logical relationships. For
pairs of antonyms like good/bad, big/small only the second one of the above
mentioned relations of implication holds. The assertion containing one
member implies the negation of the other, but not vice versa. «John is
good» implies that «John is not bad», but «John is not good» does not imply
that «John is bad». The negation of one term does not necessarily implies
the assertion of the other.
An important linguistic difference from complementaries is that antonyms
are always fully gradable, e.g. hot, warm, tepid, cold.
Converseness is mirror-image relations or functions, e.g. husband/wife,
pupil/teacher, preceed/follow, above/below, before/after etc.
«John bought the car from Bill» implies that «Bill sold the car to John».
Mirror-image sentences are in many ways similar to the relations between
active and passive sentences. Also in the comparative form: »Y is smaller
than X, then X is larger than Y».
L. Lipka also gives the type which he calls directional opposition
up/down, consiquence opposition learn/know, antipodal opposition
North/South, East/West, ( it is based on contrary motion, in opposite
directions.) The pairs come/go, arrive/depart involve motion in different
directions. In the case up/down we have movement from a point P. In the
case come/go we have movement from or to the speaker.
L. Lipka also points out non-binary contrast or many-member lexical sets.
Here he points out serially ordered sets, such as scales / hot, warm,
tepid, cool, cold/ ; colour words / black, grey, white/ ; ranks /marshal,
general, colonel, major, captain etc./ There are gradable examination
marks / excellent, good, average, fair, poor/. In such sets of words we
can have outer and inner pairs of antonyms. He also points out cycles, such
as units of time /spring, summer, autumn, winter/ . In this case there are
no «outermost» members.
Not every word in a language can have antonyms. This type of opposition
can be met in qualitative adjectives and their derivatives, e.g. beautiful-
ugly, to beautify - to uglify, beauty - ugliness. It can be also met in
words denoting feelings and states, e.g. respect - scorn, to respect - to
scorn, respectful - scornful, to live - to die, alive - dead, life - death.
It can be also met among words denoting direction in space and time, e.g.
here - there, up - down , now - never, before - after, day - night, early -
late etc.
If a word is polysemantic it can have several antonyms, e.g. the word
«bright» has the antonyms «dim», «dull», «sad».
LOCAL VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
ON THE BRITISH ISLES
On the British Isles there are some local varieties of English which
developed from Old English local dialects. There are six groups of them:
Lowland /Scottish/ , Northern, Western, Midland, Eastern, Southern. These
varieties are used in oral speech by the local population. Only the
Scottish dialect has its own literature /R. Berns/.
One of the best known dialects of British English is the dialect of
London - Cockney. Some peculiarities of this dialect can be seen in the
first act of «Pigmalion» by B. Shaw, such as : interchange of /v/ and /w/
e.g. wery vell; interchange of /f/ and /0/ , /v/ and / /, e. g/ fing
/thing/ and fa:ve / father/; interchange of /h/ and /-/ , e.g. «’eart» for
«heart» and «hart» for «art; substituting the diphthong /ai/ by /ei/ e.g.
«day» is pronounced /dai/; substituting /au/ by /a:/ , e.g. «house» is
pronounced /ha:s/,«now« /na:/ ; substituting /ou/ by /o:/ e.g. «don’t» is
pronounced /do:nt/ or substituting it by / / in unstressed positions, e.g.
«window» is pronounced /wind /.
Another feature of Cockney is rhyming slang: «hat» is «tit for tat»,
«wife» is «trouble and strife», «head» is «loaf of bread» etc. There are
also such words as «tanner» /sixpence/, «peckish»/hungry/.
Peter Wain in the «Education Guardian» writes about accents spoken by
University teachers: «It is a variety of Southern English RP which is
different from Daniel Jones’s description. The English, public school
leavers speak, is called «marked RP», it has some characteristic features :
the vowels are more central than in English taught abroad, e.g. «bleck
het»/for «black hat»/, some diphthongs are also different, e.g. «house» is
pronounced /hais/. There is less aspiration in /p/, /b/, /t/ /d/.
The American English is practically uniform all over the country, because
of the constant transfer of people from one part of the country to the
other. However, some peculiarities in New York dialect can be pointed out,
such as: there is no distinction between / / and /a: / in words: «ask»,
«dance» «sand» «bad», both phonemes are possible. The combination «ir» in
the words: «bird», «girl» «ear» in the word «learn» is pronoinced as /oi/
e.g. /boid/, /goil/, /loin/.In the words «duty’, «tune» /j/ is not
pronounced /du:ti/, /tu:n/.
BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISH
British and American English are two main variants of English. Besides
them there are : Canadian, Australian, Indian, New Zealand and other
variants. They have some peculiarities in pronunciation, grammar and
vocabulary, but they are easily used for communication between people
living in these countries. As far as the American English is concerned,
some scientists /H.N. Menken, for example/ tried to prove that there is a
separate American language. In 1919 H.N. Menken published a book called
«The American Language». But most scientists, American ones including,
criticized his point of view because differences between the two variants
are not systematic.
American English begins its history at the beginning of the 17-th century
when first English-speaking settlers began to settle on the Atlantic coast
of the American continent. The language which they brought from England
was the language spoken in England during the reign of Elizabeth the First.
In the earliest period the task of Englishmen was to find names for
places, animals, plants, customs which they came across on the American
continent. They took some of names from languages spoken by the local
population - Indians, such as :»chipmuck»/an American squirrel/, «igloo»
/Escimo dome-shaped hut/, «skunk» / a black and white striped animal with a
bushy tail/, «squaw» / an Indian woman/, »wigwam» /an American Indian tent
made of skins and bark/ etc.
Besides Englishmen, settlers from other countries came to America, and
English-speaking settlers mixed with them and borrowed some words from
their languages, e.g. from French the words «bureau»/a writing desk/,
«cache» /a hiding place for treasure, provision/, «depot’/ a store-house/,
«pumpkin»/a plant bearing large edible fruit/. From Spanish such words as:
»adobe» / unburnt sun-dried brick/, »bananza» /prosperity/, «cockroach» /a
beetle-like insect/, «lasso» / a noosed rope for catching cattle/ were
borrowed.
Present-day New York stems from the Dutch colony New Amsterdam, and
Dutch also influenced English. Such words as: «boss», «dope», «sleigh»
were borrowed .
The second period of American English history begins in the 19-th
century. Immigrants continued to come from Europe to America. When large
groups of immigrants from the same country came to America some of their
words were borrowed into English. Italians brought with them a style of
cooking which became widely spread and such words as: «pizza», «spaghetti»
came into English. From the great number of German-speaking settlers the
following words were borrowed into English: «delicatessen», «lager»,
«hamburger», «noodle», «schnitzel» and many others.
During the second period of American English history there appeared quite
a number of words and word-groups which were formed in the language due to
the new poitical system, liberation of America from the British
colonialism, its independence. The following lexical units appeared due to
these events: the United States of America , assembly, caucus, congress,
Senate, congressman, President, senator, precinct, Vice-President and many
others. Besides these political terms many other words were coined in
American English in the 19-th century: to antagonize, to demoralize,
influential, department store, telegram, telephone and many others.
There are some differences between British and American English in the
usage of prepositions, such as prepositions with dates, days of the week BE
requres «on» / I start my holiday on Friday/, in American English there is
no preposition / I start my vacation Friday/. In Be we use «by day», «by
night»/»at night», in AE the corresponding forms are «days» and «nights».
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