Dissimilarity of Senses ( Part 2)

Partial

Look at the following pairs:

cover, book
brake, car
wall, room
finger, hand
pupil, eye

Features of Partial Antonymy

The first is part of the second: brake, car/ finger, hand), and the same is with the rest of pairs.
The first is not the second and the second is not the first. ( a cover is not a book and a book is not a cover)
Structurally speaking, we have two ways to express the relation between them
- of-structure ( the cover of the book, the fingers of the hand etc.), but the opposite is wrong ( the *book of the cover, *the hand of fingers)
- compound structure (book cover, hand fingers etc.), but the opposite is wrong ( *cover book, *fingers hand etc)

Cyclic

Group1	Saturday	Sunday	Monday	Tuesday	Wednsday	Thursday	Friday
Group2	winter	spring	summer	Autumn/fall
Group3	January	February	March	April	May	June	etc

Features of Cyclic Antonymy

Within each group, the sense relation is cyclic, not linear.
You can start any where and go in a cyclic or circular manner. For instance, If you start with Saturday, the week ends in Friday. If you start with Monday, the weekends in Sunday and so on.
Each word in the group derives its sense from its position in the circle. For example, spring comes after winter, but before summer.
Any day can be the first day of the week ( not necessarily Saturday) and any season can be the first season in the year. The most important thing is to keep the order within the cyclic group.
Months of the year are also cyclic antonyms.

Rank

Rank Antonymy
Group 1	Assistant Professor	Associate Professor	Full Professor
Group 2	Freshman	Sophomore	Junior	Senior
Group 3	Grade 1	Grade 2	Grade 3	Grade 4	Grade 5	Grade 6	Grade 7

The following three groups are rank antonyms. The sense relation is called hierarchical antonymy.

Group 1	Group 2	Group 3
Academic Ranks of University Professors	University Undergraduate Years	School Grades up to Grade 12
	Senior (Year 4)	Grade 4
Full Professor	Junior (3 years)	Grade 3
Assosiate Professor	Sophomore (2years)	Grade 2
Assistant Professor	Freshman (Year 1)	Grade 1

Each group consists of words or phrases with a fixed order going from the lowest rank to the highest rank.

Features of Rank Antonymy

Antonyms should belong to a group/system
They are in a fixed order.
They go from the lowest rank to the highest rank.

Comparison between cyclic antonymy and rank antonymy
Cyclic Antonymy	Rank Antonymy
Circle order	Linear order
No specific beginning or end	Lowest beginning and highest end
Words of the group cover the related system e.g. Saturday…..Friday cover the “week system”	Words of the group cover the related system e.g. Grade 1- Grade 12 cover the “system of the school years”

Affinity Antonymy

Group 1	apple	orange	banana
Group 2	cow	sheep	hourse
Group 3	book	encyclopedia	magazine

Features of Affinity Antonymy

e.g. If A is a cow, it can’t be a sheep or a horse. Therefore, the words in each group are in affinity antonymy.

Each word in each group is a hyponym of a superordinate
- Each word in Group 1 is a hyponym of fruit
- Each word in Group 2 is a hyponym of domestic animals
- Each word in Group 3 is a hyponym of printed material.
Within each group, the words exclude each other.
The words in each group are related to each other. That’s why they are called affinity antonyms.

In conclusion, this essay has explored four distinctive types of antonyms—partial, cyclic, rank, and affinity—each shedding light on different dimensions of linguistic opposition. In fact, recognizing and utilizing such antonyms enhances our communication skills, allowing us to articulate ideas with precision and clarity. ( Also, See Essay No.2 on Lexical Relations).

References

Hurford, J., B. Heasley and M. Smith (2007) Semantics: a coursebook (2nd edition) Cambridge University Press
George Yule (2014) The Study of Language (5th edition) Cambridge University Press
Alkhuli, M.A., An Introduction to Semantics ( 2008) Dar AlFalah, Jordan