In Chapter 5, lexico-syntactic frames typical of each textual function of antonym co-occurrences in Mandarin Chinese have been identified. Table 13 summarizes the findings. The findings have several theoretical and empirical implications.
Table 13. Constructions typical of each textual function of antonym co-occurrences in Mandarin Chinese
Functions Typical Constructions
Coordinated Antonymy • juxtaposition: XY
• antonym X + conjunction (e.g., yu ‘and’) + antonymY
• four-character phrases (e.g., shi dui shi cuo ‘be right be wrong’)
• interrogative + antonym X + interrogative + antonym Y
• (buguan/bulun/wulun)(shi)…haishi/huoshi… ‘whether…or…’
• double negation (e.g., bu…(ye) bu… ‘not… (also) not…’)
Ancillary Antonymy • XAYB (X and Y form an antonymous pair; A and B form a nearby contrast.)
• AXBY (ditto)
Transitive Antonymy • subject + verb + object
• patient + passive marker (e.g., bei ‘by’) + agent + verb
• subject + co-verb (e.g., dui ‘to’) + object + verb Transitional Antonymy • xian…hou… ‘first…then…’
• cong/you…dao… ‘from…to…’
• (cong/you)…zhuan(bian) wei/zhuan hui/zhuan xiang… ‘(from)…turn into…’
• (cong/you)…xiang/dao…(de) zhuanbian/bianhua ‘(from)…to…(DE) change’
Specified Antonymy • antonym X + number + antonym Y + number
• number + antonym X + number + antonym Y
Negated Antonymy • (zhi ‘only’ +)(modal +) antonym X + bu ‘not’ (+ modal) + antonym Y
Functions (cont.) Typical Constructions (cont.)
Comparative Antonymy • antonym X + bi/jiao ‘than’ + antonym Y + stative verb
• antonym X + monosyllabic stative verb + yu ‘than’ + antonym Y
• antonym X + han/tong/gen ‘and’ + antonym Y + yiyang/tongyang ‘the same’
• antonym X + yu/han ‘and’ + antonym Y + (de) + bili/bilu ‘ratio’
• antonym + shi/wei ‘be’ + antonym + de + number + bei ‘time’
Associative Antonymy • connection-denoting words: guanxi ‘relationship’, hudong ‘interaction’, hezuo ‘cooperation’, peihe ‘cooperation’, peidui ‘match’, jiaoyi ‘transaction’, jiaoliu ‘communication’, jiehun ‘to get married’, xietiao ‘to negotiate’, xiangchu ‘to get along with’, etc.
Idiomatic Antonymy • bu jin ze tui
• jin ke gong, tui ke shou
• Changjiang hou lang tui qian lang
• qian wu gu ren, hou wu lai zhe
• nan you fen, nu you gui
• jia xi zhen zuo
Distinguished Antonymy • d-words: chabie ‘difference’, chayi ‘difference’, butong ‘difference’, fenqing ‘to distinguish’, fenbian ‘to distinguish’, fenpei ‘to distribute’, etc.
• spatial metaphors: chaju ‘difference in distance’ and jiexian ‘boundary’, etc.
• metaphors of war: zhanzheng ‘war’, jingzheng ‘competition’, duikang ‘fight’, and dou ‘to fight; to compete’, etc.
First, this study complements Lien (1989), which focuses on four-character phrases with antonyms serving as affixes, such as dong-ben-xi-pao ‘east-run-west-run;
to run about’, qian-si-hou-xiang ‘front-think-back-think; to think over and over again’, and fei-lai-fei-qu ‘fly-come-fly-go; to fly back and forth’. The present study, on the other hand, examines four-character phrases in which antonyms are semantically fundamental, such as shi dui shi cuo ‘be right be wrong’ and cong nan dao yi ‘from what is difficult to what is easy’. The four-character phrases examined in this study exhibit various textual functions, such as signaling inclusiveness or exhaustiveness (e.g., shi dui shi cuo ‘be right be wrong’), describing a transition (e.g., cong nan dao yi ‘from what is difficult to what is easy’), and laying emphasis (e.g., zhi jin bu chu ‘only get in not get out’).
Second, by identifying lexico-syntactic frames associated with each textual function of antonymy in Mandarin Chinese, this study shows that textual functions can be understood in terms of collocational associations (Stubbs 2001). It is impossible to directly observe how antonyms function in text, for textual functions are an invisible mental phenomenon. Nevertheless, the textual function of an antonymous pair can be reliably inferred through words occurring around the pair, i.e., the lexico-syntactic frame in which the pair is embedded. For example, when antonyms co-occur in the lexico-syntactic frame (buguan/bulun/wulun)(shi)…haishi/huoshi…
‘whether…or…’, their inclusiveness is signaled. On the other hand, when antonyms co-occur in a context featuring a d-word (e.g., chabie ‘difference’), it is their distinction that is enhanced. These examples suggest that the textual function of an antonymous pair is not independent of the environment.
Third, the observation that there exist associations between lexico-syntactic frames and textual functions of antonymy in Mandarin Chinese confirms the findings in recent studies on antonymy. Traditionally, antonymy has been regarded as a
paradigmatic opposition stored in the lexicon (e.g., Deese 1962, 1964). That is, words are associated with each other as antonyms because they are interchangeable in most contexts. However, recent studies (e.g., Charles and Miller 1989; Fellbaum 1995;
Jones 2002, 2006; Justeson and Katz 1991; Stubbs 2001) have observed that how antonyms function in text is inferable from the co-text, i.e., the lexico-syntactic frame in which the antonymous pair is embedded. It is thus suggested that antonymy might be considered to be a syntagmatic relation in addition to a paradigmatic opposition.
The alternative view to antonymy has had significant implications for how antonyms are acquired. According to the Co-occurrence Hypothesis (Charles and Miller 1989:360), the association between antonyms might arise from the fact that they co-occur far more frequently than by chance. Furthermore, the association between antonyms might be enhanced by recurrent lexico-syntactic frames in which antonyms are embedded (Justeson and Katz 1991).
Chapter 6
Antonym Sequences in Mandarin Chinese
In Chapter 5, constructions typical of each textual function of antonym co-occurrences in Mandarin Chinese are identified. Another intriguing issue that seems to have constructional implications is whether antonyms prefer a particular sequence in text. As in English (Jones 2002), it has been found in Mandarin Chinese that antonyms prefer a particular sequence in text (Section 6.1). There are two more research questions in this chapter. First, for a certain antonymous pair in Mandarin Chinese, why is a given sequence preferred over the reverse of the preferred sequence (Section 6.2)? Second, since the canonical sequence is not preferred at all times, what are the factors that determine the use of a canonical antonym sequence (Section 6.3)?
In this chapter, it will be demonstrated that the most dominant factor affecting antonym sequences in Mandarin Chinese is the notion of positivity. In addition, the notion of positivity plays an essential part in how stabilized a given canonical antonym sequence is.
6.1 Sequence Statistics
This section presents the sequence statistics, identifying which sequence is preferred by a given antonymous pair in Mandarin Chinese and how stabilized the preferred sequence is. Table 14 lists all the antonymous pairs examined in the present study, in order of the extent to which they adhere to their canonical sequence in text.
In Table 14, the canonical antonym sequences in Mandarin Chinese are recorded in Column 1, the number of the database sentences that follow the canonical sequence of a given antonymous pair is recorded in Column 2, the percentage of the database sentences that follow the canonical sequence of a given antonymous pair is recorded
in Column 3, the number of the database sentences that do not follow the canonical sequence of a given antonymous pair is recorded in Column 4, the percentage of the database sentences that do not follow the canonical sequence of a given antonymous pair is recorded in Column 5, and the total of the database sentences for each antonymous pair is recorded in Column 6.
Table 14. Antonym sequences in Mandarin Chinese
nansheng ‘male’/nusheng ‘female’ 123 82.0% 27 18.0% 150
fangdong ‘landlord’/
fangke ‘tenant’ 85 74.6% 29 25.4% 114
jia ‘fake’/zhen ‘real’ 111 74.0% 39 26.0% 150
nanren ‘male’/nuren ‘female’ 109 72.7% 41 27.3% 150
nanzi ‘male’/nuzi ‘female’ 106 70.7% 44 29.3% 150
qian ‘front; before’/
hou ‘back; after’ 105 70.0% 45 30.0% 150
chengren ‘to confirm’/
fouren ‘to deny’ 103 68.7% 47 31.3% 150
nanxing ‘male’/nuxing ‘female’ 102 68.0% 48 32.0% 150
mai ‘to buy’/mai ‘to sell’ 101 67.3% 49 32.7% 150
fumu ‘parents’/haizi ‘child’ 98 65.3% 52 34.7% 150
laoshi ‘teacher’/xuesheng ‘student’ 97 64.7% 53 35.3% 150
maifang ‘seller’/maifang ‘buyer’ 92 61.3% 58 38.7% 150
zhengque ‘right’/cuowu ‘wrong’ 72 60.0% 48 40.0% 120
kunnan ‘difficult’/rongyi ‘easy’ 59 58.4% 42 41.6% 101
lao ‘old’/nianqing ‘young’ 83 55.3% 67 44.7% 150
ying ‘to win’/shu ‘to lose’ 82 54.7% 68 45.3% 150
It is shown in Table 14 that antonyms in Mandarin Chinese prefer a particular sequence in text. For example, lao precedes shao in 98.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair, and dui precedes cuo in 96.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair. Meanwhile, it is also shown in Table 14 that the order of the two antonyms is more stabilized in some cases than in others. For instance, while lao precedes shao in as high as 98.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair, ying precedes shu in only 54.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair. The first question to be addressed is what factors affect the sequence in which antonyms co-occur.
6.2 Sequence Principles
In Section 6.1, it has been found that antonyms in Mandarin Chinese prefer a particular sequence over the reverse of the preferred sequence. This section is intended to find out what factors determine which sequence is preferred by a given antonymous pair in Mandarin Chinese.
6.2.1 Positivity
In English, antonyms bearing positive associations are given priority over those bearing negative associations (Jones 2002:124). In Mandarin Chinese, the notion of positivity is also influential in antonym sequences. For example, the word dui, which is more positive than its antonymous partner cuo, is found to precede cuo in 96.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair. The word shi, like its modern counterpart dui, is also found to precede the negative member fei in 95.3% of the database sentences featuring this pair. Similarly, the word ai is considered more positive than hen, and ai is found to precede hen in 86.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair.
The pair yi/nan is also influenced by positivity. The word nan bears negative
associations in that what is difficult is usually considered time-consuming and obstructive. It is shown in Table 14 that yi precedes nan in 86.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair. However, the same tendency is not observed in the disyllabic counterpart kunnan/rongyi. As shown in Table 14, kunnan precedes rongyi in 58.4% of the database sentences featuring this pair. A possible explanation for this pattern is that modern disyllabic antonyms may be more flexible with respect to occurrence sequencing.16
Another pair influenced by positivity is chengren/fouren (Jones 2002:125). The word chengren precedes its negative partner fouren in 68.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair.
The pair zhengque/cuowu patterns with its monosyllabic counterpart dui/cuo, with the positive antonym zhengque preceding the negative antonym cuowu in 60.0%
of the database sentences featuring this pair. However, this tendency is not as strong as in the pair dui/cuo. Like the modern disyllabic antonymous pair kunnan/rongyi, the antonyms zhengque and cuowu also show more flexibility in their sequence.
The word ying precedes its antonymous partner shu more often (54.7%) than the reverse (45.3%). However, the close figures can hardly confirm a preference either way.
The notion of positivity may be perceived in metaphorical terms. For instance, spatial terms such as qianjin, jin, and qian may be regarded as metaphorically positive, for jin and qian are associated with success and progress. The corpus data confirm this speculation. It is shown in Table 14 that qianjin precedes houtui, jin precedes tui, jin precedes chu, and qian precedes hou in 92.5%, 91.3%, 86.0%, and 70.0% of the database sentences respectively.
16 For why modern disyllabic antonyms may be more flexible with respect to occurrence sequencing, see Section 6.3.
The notion of positivity may be perceived in terms of socio-cultural backgrounds.
There exists a striking preference in English that male precedes female in 82.8% of the database sentences featuring this pair (Jones 2002:127). In Mandarin Chinese, the same tendency is also observed. As shown in Table 14, nan precedes nu, nansheng precedes nusheng, nanren precedes nuren, nanzi precedes nuzi, and nanxing precedes nuxing in 92.0%, 82.0%, 72.7%, 70.7%, and 68.0% of the database sentences respectively. Jones (2002:127) recognizes gender as one of the independent factors that affect antonym sequences. In fact, the gender effect in antonym sequencing may be regarded as reflecting social prejudices against women. Traditionally speaking, men are associated with positive characteristics, such as ability and independence, while women are associated with negative characteristics, such as inability and dependence (Litoselliti 2006). Therefore, the notion of positivity－in socio-cultural terms－can explain the sequencing pattern in antonyms of gender distinction.
As shown in Table 14, fangdong precedes fangke, fumu precedes haizi, and laoshi precedes xuesheng in 74.6%, 65.3%, and 64.7% of the database sentences featuring these pairs. In terms of socio-cultural backgrounds, the above patterns can also be accounted for by the notion of positivity. There exists a power relationship between landlords and tenants, between parents and children, and between teachers and students, for landlords rent out houses to tenants, parents raise children, and teachers educate students. The words fangdong, fumu, and laoshi, which are associated with social power, are considered more positive than their antonymous counterparts and thus given priority.
A relevant question arises immediately. That is, why are antonyms with positive associations given priority over those with negative associations? A possible explanation is that concepts bearing positive associations are usually psychologically preferred, so these concepts may be more readily accessible to speakers or writers
than those bearing negative associations. In other words, antonyms given priority are cognitively favored. Since some concepts are universally positive and preferred, the pairs shi/fei, dui/cuo, zhengque/cuowu, ai/hen, yi/nan, chengren/fouren, and ying/shu are comparable with their English equivalents right/wrong, love/hate, easy/difficult, confirm/deny, and win/lose in terms of their canonical sequences (Jones 2002).
The only discrepancy between Mandarin Chinese and English observed in this study is that while lao precedes shao in 98.7% of the Chinese database sentences featuring this pair, young precedes old in 71.0% of the English database sentences featuring this pair (Jones 2002:122). The concept of youth is considered positive in the Western culture because it is associated with energy, strength and vitality, so it is natural that young precedes old far more frequently in English than the reverse. On the other hand, the concept of oldness is considered positive in the Chinese culture because it is associated with maturity, caution and responsibility, so it is not surprising that lao precedes shao far more frequently in Mandarin Chinese than the reverse. In this instance, the notion of positivity is still relevant, but it is defined in cultural terms.
Finally, there seems to exist a counterexample, i.e., jia/zhen. The word zhen is more positive than its antonymous partner jia, but it is preceded by jia in 74.0% of the database sentences featuring this pair. In fact, almost all the sentences with jia preceding zhen are assigned to Ancillary Antonymy, featuring the lexico-syntactic frame jia…zhen… ‘fake…real…’. Here is an example:
(146) 企圖製造「假車禍、真搶劫」案件
Qitu zhizao ‘jia chehuo, zhen qiangjie’ anjian attempt produce ‘fake accident, real robbery’ case
‘attempt to produce “fake accident, real robbery” cases’
The lexico-syntactic frame jia…zhen… is frequently used in journalism to uncover crimes and conspiracies, surprising the reader or the audience. This lexico-syntactic frame might be considered specific to journalistic texts. For the pair jia/zhen, the notion of positivity is overridden by genre-specific concerns. With the sentences featuring the lexico-syntactic frame jia…zhen… left aside, almost all the other sentences featuring the pair zhen/jia have the negative word jia following its positive counterpart zhen, as shown in the following sentence:
(147) 網上的生意人有真有假，
Wang shang de shengyiren you zhen you jia, Internet on DE businessman have real have fake
‘Some businessmen on the Internet are honest, while others are not.’
In (147), zhen and jia are coordinated in a four-character lexico-syntactic frame, with the positive antonym preceding the negative one. The notion of positivity still works in (147).
6.2.2 Frequency
The notion of positivity cannot account for the sequence pattern observed in the pair mai/mai ‘to buy/to sell’. Table 14 shows that mai ‘to buy’ precedes mai ‘to sell’ in 67.3% of the database sentences featuring this pair. Another factor that may account for this case is frequency. In the Chinese Word Sketch Engine, there are 38,236 hits featuring mai ‘to buy’ and 25,951 hits featuring mai ‘to sell’. A word with a higher frequency may be more readily accessible to the speaker or the writer than a word with a lower frequency, and this may explain why mai ‘to buy’ is given priority over mai ‘to sell’.
Intriguingly, while mai ‘to buy’ usually precedes mai ‘to sell’ in text, maifang
‘buyer’ is more frequently preceded by maifang ‘seller’ in text (61.3%). This pattern cannot be accounted for by frequency, for maifang ‘buyer’ (2,749 hits) is more frequent than maifang ‘seller’ (1,731 hits) in the Chinese Word Sketch Engine. In addition, it is hard to tell which antonym is more positive or is associated with power in the business domain. The reason why maifang ‘seller’ precedes maifang ‘buyer’
more often is not clear yet.
6.2.3 Why do antonyms sometimes co-occur in an uncanonical sequence?
In Mandarin Chinese, the notion of positivity has been identified to be the most dominant factor in antonym sequencing. However, as shown in Table 14, no matter how stabilized a particular sequence is, there always exist cases in which antonyms co-occur in the reverse order. Consider the following sentences:
(148) 奇蹟是怎樣出現的，正是應了「至難出於至易」這句古語。
Qiji shi zenyang chuxian de, zhengshi ying le ‘zhi nan chu yu zhi yi’ zhe ju gu yu.
miracle BE how appear DE, exactly reflect ASPECT ‘extreme difficult come out from extreme easy’ this CLASSIFIER old saying
‘How miracles take place exactly reflect the old saying ‘what is extremely difficult arises from what is extremely easy’.’
(149) 買票有難也有易。
Mai piao you nan ye you yi.
buy ticket have difficult also have easy
‘Buying (train) tickets is sometimes difficult and sometimes easy.’
Table 14 shows that yi precedes nan in 86.7% of the database sentences featuring this pair, but this tendency is not observed in the above two sentences. That is, the notion of positivity is ignored in the above two sentences.
For sentences adhering to sequencing principles, the perspective taken is the default one, thus yielding the default, canonical sequence. However, as the above two examples show, perspective shifts might take place from time to time, yielding the other sequencing order. In (148), qiji ‘miracle’, which apparently departs from the laws of nature and thus seldom occurs, allows the speaker or the writer to take a perspective from which nan is more readily accessible, so the unusual sequence nan/yi is yielded. Similarly, mai piao ‘to buy tickets’ in (149), which refers to buying train tickets for the Chinese New Year holiday, is also assumed to be difficult. Given this background, the writer perceives nan as having more priority than yi. As the two examples show, while the perspective taken is usually constrained by sequencing principles, the context may motivate a perspective shift (Verhagen 2007). Therefore, reverse antonym sequences sometimes take place.
6.2.4 Interim Summary
In Mandarin Chinese, antonym sequences are mostly determined by positivity and frequency. As in English, the notion of positivity is the most influential factor in Mandarin Chinese. That is, antonyms bearing positive associations are given priority over those bearing negative associations. However, when the context triggers perspective shifts, the above principles may be ignored, giving rise to reverse antonym sequences.
6.3 Sequencing Preferences
It has been found in Section 6.1 that antonyms in Mandarin Chinese prefer a
particular sequence in text. In addition, as shown in Table 14, some antonym pairs show more stability in the preferred sequencing than others. For example, lao
particular sequence in text. In addition, as shown in Table 14, some antonym pairs show more stability in the preferred sequencing than others. For example, lao