Hum (Jan 2020)
Lexical and semantic relations of opposites conditional upon context
Abstract
The paper analyzes relations of semantic opposites among words in the feuilletons (En Passant) and essays (Sadašnjost za vječnost – selection from the works) by Veselko Tenžera, especially those conditional upon context. Since those relations are not visible outside the mentioned context, we call that phenomenon antonymy. Examples of the real opposite or antonymy are given at the beginning of the paper, but due to the context in which they are put, they also contribute to greater language expressiveness and stylistic refinement of the expression. Expressiveness and stylization of the expression are especially evident in the second part of the paper which singles out expressions and syntagms mutually opposite solely because of the context – antonymicity. Examples of such opposite, achieved by figures of speech or putting different words into unusual connections, influence on the stylistic expressiveness. That is especially the case with multi-part antonymic expressions whose surface structure is completely lost out of sight due to context, while the expressiveness of the text is increased.
