At school, in Russian language lessons, they start studying what an antonym is from grade 2, and then periodically supplement knowledge about this concept. So, in translation from Greek, it literally means: "against" - anti and "name" - onoma. This term can only be applied to a couple of words. In one word - never! So, antonyms are words with lexically opposite meanings (for example, harmful - antonym useful).
Only words of the same part of speech can enter into such pairs:
- noun with nouns;
- adjective with adjective;
- verb with verb;
- adverb with adverb;
- communion with participle;
- gerund with gerund;
- preposition with preposition.
Do not form such pairs:
- almost all pronouns;
- words that denote gender (a woman and a man are not an antonymous couple);
- nouns that have a subjective meaning (for example, a book, a house, etc.);
- proper names (it is impossible to find an opposite pair of words "Moscow", "Russia", "Pavel", "Murka", etc.);
- numerals.
Restrictions on the formation of such pairs:
- different style coloring;
- words with diminutive and augmentative suffixes (for example, rain - rain - rain).
Antonymy of polysemantic words
Possible words deserve special attention. For example, the word fresh has several meanings. For each of them, you can choose your own antonymous pair:
- fresh bread - stale bread;
- fresh linen - dirty linen;
- fresh wind - hot wind;
Considering what the antonym of a polysemantic word is, it is important to understand that it is also possible to pair the same word between its different meanings. For example, the verb "view". The first meaning of this word is "to get acquainted, to see something." The second meaning is "not to see, not to notice, to miss".
Difference of antonyms by structure:
- single-root (for example, silent - noisy);
- different roots (for example, courage - fear).
This phenomenon in the language made it possible to build stylistic figures. It is no longer just knowing what antonyms are, it is the ability to create various images using language.
The first phenomenon is the antithesis
It is built on a sharp opposition of the meanings of words, thanks to which many people remember the titles of the classic works "War and Peace", "Fathers and Sons", "Thick and Thin", etc.
The second phenomenon is an oxymoron
This figure is based on a combination of oppositethe meaning of words. Among the literary names using an oxymoron are "Hot Snow", "Living Corpse", "Dead Souls".
With a clear knowledge of what an antonym is, one can easily identify these stylistic figures while studying literature.
In addition, it is customary to distinguish the following antonyms in Russian:
- general language - commonly used in everyday life and in literary texts (for example, night - day);
- contextual - words that become antonyms only within a certain context (for example, "Wolves and sheep").
A polysemantic word, homonym, synonym, antonym make speech richer and more interesting, they are often used in proverbs and sayings, literary texts and colloquial speech.
To fix antonyms, there are specialized dictionaries recommended by the Ministry of Education, edited by Vvedenskaya L. A., Kolesnikov N. P., Lvov M. R.
