Antonyms are words that are different in sound and have opposite meanings: lie - truth, evil - good, silence - speak. Examples of antonyms show that they refer to the same part of speech.
Antonymy in Russian is much narrower than synonymy. This is due to the fact that only words that are correlated in terms of quality (good - bad, native - alien, smart - stupid, dense - rare, high - low), temporal (day - night, early - late), quantitative (single - multiple, many - few), spatial (spacious - cramped, large - small, wide - narrow, high - low) features.
There are antonymic pairs denoting the names of states, actions. Examples of antonyms of this kind: rejoice - grieve, cry - laugh.
Types and examples of antonyms in Russian
Antonyms are subdivided according to their structure into heterogeneous (morning - evening) and same-root (enter - exit). The opposite of ysingle-root antonyms is caused by prefixes. However, it should be remembered that adding prefixes without -, not - to adverbs and qualitative adjectives in most cases gives them the meaning of a weakened opposite (high - low), so the contrast of their meanings is "muted" (low - this does not mean "low"). Based on this, not all prefix formations can be attributed to antonyms, but only those that are the extreme points of the lexical paradigm: strong - powerless, harmful - harmless, successful - unsuccessful.
Antonyms, as well as synonyms, are closely related to polysemy: empty - serious (conversation); empty - full (cup); empty - expressive (look); empty - meaningful (story). Examples of antonyms show that different meanings of the word "empty" are included in different antonymic pairs. Single-valued words, as well as words with specific meanings (iambic, pencil, desk, notebook, etc.) cannot have antonyms.
Exists among antonyms and the phenomenon of enantiosemy is the development of mutually exclusive, opposite meanings of some polysemantic words: carry (into the room, bring) - carry (out of the room, take away); abandoned (a phrase just said) - abandoned (abandoned, forgotten). The meaning in such cases is specified in the context. Enantiosemy is often the cause of ambiguity in certain expressions. Examples of antonyms of this kind: he listened to the report; the director reviewed these lines.
Context antonyms: examples and definitions
Contextual antonyms are words that are opposed in a certain context: moonlight - sunlight; not a mother, but a daughter; one day - the whole life; wolves are sheep. The polarity of the meanings of such words in the language is not fixed, and their opposition is an individual author's decision. The writer in such cases reveals the opposite qualities of various concepts and contrasts them in speech. However, these pairs of words are not antonyms.
