The Logical Basis, Semantic Generation And Linguistic Limitation Of Chinese Antonyms

Chinese antonyms appear in the form of(x,y),where the antonym of x is y,and the antonym of y is x.We call such a group of words "antonym pairs".There are many researches on the judgment of Chinese antonyms in academic circles.The author makes a new attempt from the perspective of language logic.This paper holds that the formation of Chinese antonyms has a complete constitutional mechanism.Firstly,the x and y in the antonym pairs are in an identical relation.Secondly,x and y must be antonymous in reality or in a possible world directly or indirectly.Third,x and y that meet the first and second conditions must follow a series of linguistic rules such as phonetics and grammar.This article consists of four chapters.The contents of each chapter are summarized as follows:The first chapter includes the reasons of choosing the topic and the significances of the research,the research scope of the paper and the current research results at home and abroad.Domestic research on Chinese antonyms began in the 1950 s with many achievements.However,no consensus has been reached on the criteria for the determination of Chinese antonyms.This has had a bad influence on how to properly use Chinese antonyms in daily life.The research objects of this article include the words with identical relations,the words with antonymous relations,and Chinese antonyms.The appropriate corpus is selected from typical works and various kinds of dictionaries.This research is carried out under the reference of domestic and foreign research results.Chapter 2 argues that the logical basis of Chinese antonyms is the identical relation and rethinks the classification of Chinese antonyms.Regarding the classification of Chinese antonyms,there are many opinions in the academic world.From the dichotomy of the 1950 s to the trichotomy of the 1980 s,the quartile and the quintile of the 21 st century,and so on.However,these various classification methods not only fail to solve the problem of classification of Chinese antonyms,but also have their own problems in terms of classification criteria.This chapter reaffirms the logical basis of Chinese antonyms and holds that these two relations can point to the nature of things or point to the relationship between things.Chapter 3 explores the semantic origins and the generative mechanism of antonymy.This chapter draws on Karl Popper’s "three worlds" theory and proposes that antonymy comes from the concept of the new "three worlds" which includes the real world,the spiritual product world and the symbolic world.It is believed that words in those three world constitute the collection of "words with antonymous relations".On the basis of the source of antonymous relations,the semantic generation rule of antonymous relations is further summarized.The significance of this chapter lies in a connecting link between the preceding and the following.On the one hand,the set of "words with antonymous relations" is further from the set of "words with identical relations".on the other hand,words with antonymous relation are distinguished from Chinese antonyms.Chapter 4 analyzes how words with antonymous relations eventually become antonyms.Since the predecessors have already had relatively rich research results in this respect,this section just summarizes,revises,and supplements the previous viewpoints.Firstly,the consistent number of syllables is a necessary condition for forming Chinese antonyms.Secondly,grammatical restrictions are considered to be very important,which means both grammatical units and part of speeches in Chinese antonyms should be consistent.However,the consistency of the structure of Chinese antonyms is not strictly required.Chinese antonyms are important linguistic phenomena.It is of practical significance to carry out a systematic and in-depth study of the mechanism of Chinese antonyms.In the three major mechanisms,the logical basis is objective,the requirements of speech and grammar conform to the development of language.Relatively speaking,the stability of these two points is relatively high,and the antonymous relations that come from the three new worlds have a closer relationship with the development of social history,and they tend to change with the passage of time and the transformation of space.So the stability is relatively low.Moreover,this is also an important reason for the differences in the definitions and use of antonyms between different countries and nations.