How do we know the world around us? Through images, sensations and words. A child's vocabulary is formed in early childhood and continues to grow 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 become an excellent exercise for the development of figurative 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 run out. Well, or until you get bored.
Name and meaning
How did the antipode words, which are so rich in our speech today, get their name? Word"antonym" came to us from Greece, it consists of two parts: the first part antii is translated as "against"; the second part of onima means "name". The general meaning is "opposite name".
As a rule, antonyms come from the same part of speech, are pronounced and spelled completely differently and are absolutely opposite words in meaning. Not all words have a pair in the form of an antonym, however, in our great and mighty, most objects have an antipode.
Examples can be easily found: black color - white color; day - night.
So, words that are opposite in meaning are called antonyms. They belong to a certain part of speech, and you can ask the same questions to them. Antonyms consider the properties of an object, attribute or action from a single plane, paying attention to certain characteristics, but in meaning they are antipodes. These opposites are formed in pairs, and the combination of words opposite in meaning is called antonymic pairs: pure truth - dirty lie.
Morphological differences
Let's move on to morphology. Carrying out a morphological analysis of antonymic pairs, Russian scholars found out that antonyms are divided into two types according to a structural feature:
First type: heterogeneous, in the words of which there are no common components. For example: masculine - feminine (adjectives). Accordingly, a man is a woman (nouns);
Second type: single root, receivedby adding prefixes that have an anti-meaning to the common root: enter the house - leave the house; or prefixes attached to the main word: literate - illiterate; polite - impolite; stress - antistress
Polysemy - uniqueness
In Russian, there are polysemantic words that behave differently:
- Option one: a certain antonym is "attached" to each of its semantic meanings of the word. For example: cold - warm (floor), cold - warm (reception), cold - warm (look). Here, words that are opposite in meaning are combined in pairs.
- Second variant: when different meanings of a word correspond to different antonyms. For example: soft - hard (character), soft - sharp (voice), soft - bright (light), soft - hard (earth). In this case, words opposite in meaning do not constitute a rigidly fixed conjunction and depend on the context.
Important! You must be careful not to confuse polysemantic words and homonyms.
Polysemantic 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 in common: turn the key in the door - the key beats from the ground.
About relationships
Antonyms have a lot of "secrets" regarding their relationship to different categories. Consider them:
- relation to time: end of business - beginning of business; early rise - late rise; daytime sleep - nighttime sleep;
- relation 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 experience love - to experience hatred; show anger - show kindness; happy child - sad child; young man - old man;
- attitude towards quantity: a lot of fruit - little fruit; excess of feelings - lack of feelings; sell high - sell low.
Semantic subtleties
Speaking of antonyms or words that are opposite in meaning, one cannot fail to mention the subtleties of semantic nuances inherent in this category of the Russian language. Among them are:
- Contradictor type of antonyms. Here, only the start and end points are available, there are no transitions between them: start - finish.
- Counter view of antonyms. There is an intermediate point between the start and end points: cold - warm - hot.
- Vector type of antonyms. They are characterized by the opposite direction of distinctive features, activities, manifestations: scientific - anti-scientific; left - arrived.
- Conversational form of antonyms. In this case, an opposite view of the object (subject) or type of activity is presented: to study at school - to teach at school; find time - lose time.
- A type of enantiosemy. Here the semantic meaning of the antonym is diametrically opposite when the structure of the phrase coincides: borrowed a notebook from a friend - lent a notebook to a friend.
Parts of speech
It is not always possible to find words that are opposite in meaning: they are not among the namesnumerals, pronouns, as well as 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, he alth is a disease.
- among adjectives: black - white, fast - slow, deceitful - truthful; light - heavy, sick - he althy, hard - soft, cold - hot;
- among verbs: advance - retreat, approach - move away, heat - cool, close - open, live - die, light - extinguish;
among adverbs: in winter - summer, far - close, high - low, dark - light, hot - cold, rarely - often, slowly - quickly.
Words with opposite meanings are often included in the content of works by writers and poets: thanks to these words, texts become more vivid and figurative. At the same time, the authors use the so-called contextual antonyms, which clarify the meaning of a phrase or voluminous text, as a result of which the description of the character of the characters turns out to be 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 form a child's vocabulary from early childhood, showing him the possibilities of the Russian language.
