ENANTIOSEMY IN THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Abstract

The article is devoted to the consideration of enantiosemy in English. An overview of the primary and secondary categorical features of this phenomenon is given. The part-of-speech affiliation of the enantionyms of the English language is analyzed. Verbal, substantival and adjectival types of enantiosemy are revealed as the most common. The groups of verbal enantionyms are distinguished on the basis of the seme oppositions in their semantic structure. It is found out that the semantics of most verbal enantionyms of the English language is built on the contrasting semes ‘add – remove, ‘give – get’, ‘positive emotion – negative emotion’, ‘subject – object’, ‘action – counteraction’, ‘positive action – negative action’. The practical significance of the study lies in the possibility of using the obtained results in university courses of lexicology, stylistics and pragmatics.

Keywords

• enantiosemy
• features of enantiosemy
• verbal enantiosemy
• seme opposition
• contrasting semes
• энантиосемия
• признаки энантиосемии
• отглагольная энантиосемия
• семная оппозиция
• контрастирующие семы