Googling for opposites: a web-based study of antonym canonicity
Jones, Steven ; Paradis, Carita LU
; Murphy, M. Lynne
and Willners, Caroline
LU
(2007)
In Corpora
2(2).
p.129-154
- Abstract
- This paper seeks to explain why some semantically-opposed word pairs are more likely to be seen as canonical antonyms (for example, cold/hot) than others (icy/scorching, cold/fiery, freezing/hot, etc.). Specifically, it builds on research which has demonstrated that, in discourse, antonyms are inclined to favour certain frames, such as ‘X and Y alike’, ‘from X to Y’ and ‘either X or Y’ (Justeson and Katz, 1991; etc.), and to serve a limited range of discourse functions (Jones, 2002). Our premise is that the more canonical an antonym pair is, the greater the fidelity with which it will occupy such frames. Since an extremely large corpus is needed to identify meaningful patterns of co-occurrence, we turn to Internet data for this research.... (More)
- This paper seeks to explain why some semantically-opposed word pairs are more likely to be seen as canonical antonyms (for example, cold/hot) than others (icy/scorching, cold/fiery, freezing/hot, etc.). Specifically, it builds on research which has demonstrated that, in discourse, antonyms are inclined to favour certain frames, such as ‘X and Y alike’, ‘from X to Y’ and ‘either X or Y’ (Justeson and Katz, 1991; etc.), and to serve a limited range of discourse functions (Jones, 2002). Our premise is that the more canonical an antonym pair is, the greater the fidelity with which it will occupy such frames. Since an extremely large corpus is needed to identify meaningful patterns of co-occurrence, we turn to Internet data for this research. As well as enabling the notion of antonym canonicity to be revisited from a more empirical perspective, this approach also allows us to evaluate the appropriateness (and assess the risks) of using the World Wide Web as a corpus for studies into certain types of low-frequency textual phenomena. (Less)
Please use this url to cite or link to this publication:
https://lup.lub.lu.se/record/1504448
- author
- Jones, Steven
; Paradis, Carita
LU
; Murphy, M. Lynne
and Willners, Caroline
LU
- organization
- publishing date
- 2007
- type
- Contribution to journal
- publication status
- published
- subject
- keywords
- antonymy, corpus linguistics, antonym canonicity, semantics
- in
- Corpora
- volume
- 2
- issue
- 2
- pages
- 129 - 154
- publisher
- Edinburgh University Press
- external identifiers
-
- scopus:85050834051
- ISSN
- 1755-1676
- language
- English
- LU publication?
- yes
- id
- e5dd7a53-1a8a-41db-b57c-95b14a848b0b (old id 1504448)
- date added to LUP
- 2016-04-01 12:26:22
- date last changed
- 2023-11-17 06:26:17
@article{e5dd7a53-1a8a-41db-b57c-95b14a848b0b,
abstract = {{This paper seeks to explain why some semantically-opposed word pairs are more likely to be seen as canonical antonyms (for example, cold/hot) than others (icy/scorching, cold/fiery, freezing/hot, etc.). Specifically, it builds on research which has demonstrated that, in discourse, antonyms are inclined to favour certain frames, such as ‘X and Y alike’, ‘from X to Y’ and ‘either X or Y’ (Justeson and Katz, 1991; etc.), and to serve a limited range of discourse functions (Jones, 2002). Our premise is that the more canonical an antonym pair is, the greater the fidelity with which it will occupy such frames. Since an extremely large corpus is needed to identify meaningful patterns of co-occurrence, we turn to Internet data for this research. As well as enabling the notion of antonym canonicity to be revisited from a more empirical perspective, this approach also allows us to evaluate the appropriateness (and assess the risks) of using the World Wide Web as a corpus for studies into certain types of low-frequency textual phenomena.}},
author = {{Jones, Steven and Paradis, Carita and Murphy, M. Lynne and Willners, Caroline}},
issn = {{1755-1676}},
keywords = {{antonymy; corpus linguistics; antonym canonicity; semantics}},
language = {{eng}},
number = {{2}},
pages = {{129--154}},
publisher = {{Edinburgh University Press}},
series = {{Corpora}},
title = {{Googling for opposites: a web-based study of antonym canonicity}},
url = {{https://lup.lub.lu.se/search/files/2923946/1504461.pdf}},
volume = {{2}},
year = {{2007}},
}