semantics: relational opposites

RELATIONAL OPPOSITES : CONVERSENESS

A quite different kind of 'opposite' is the pairs of words which exhibit the reversal of a relationship between items (or ARGUMENT), e.g. buy/sell, husband/wife. If John sells to Fred, Fred buys from John; if Bill is Mary’s husband, Mary is Bill’s wife. This includes verbs (buy/sell, lend/borrow, rent/let, own/belong to, give/receive), nouns (husband/wife, fiancé/fiancée, parent/child, debtor/creditor), terms of spatial position (above/below, in front of/behind, north of/south of), active and passive in grammar (if Tom hits Harry, Harry is hit by Tom).

Terms involved in relational opposition may be transitive, but they cannot be symmetric. Relational opposites involve two relations (if the picture is above the table and the table above the carpet, the picture is above the carpet; also below). Symmetric relations hold between the arguments in both directions, so that only one term, not two, is required (married to, beside, meet).

Kinship terms are especially interesting in a discussion of relational opposites for two reasons:

1. Many of them indicate not only the relationship, but a different sex (father/mother, son/daughter, uncle/aunt). John is Sam's father does not entail that Sam is John's son. Sam could be his daughter. There are also pairs of words that would be symmetric were it not for their indication n of sex (brother/sister). John is Sam’s brother does not entail Sam is John’s brother (she might be his sister). Only a small number of terms in English do not indicate sex (cousin "symmetric", parent/child "relational opposites).
2. Whether a term is symmetric or not is a matter of the language. (Be married to is symmetric in English because it does not indicate sex, but in many languages where the active form of the verb is used for husband and the passive for the wife "marries/is married"). Similarly, many languages have no symmetric term "cousin"; the sex has to be indicated in these languages, or the precise relationship of the parents.

Spatial and Temporal relations: are not related as relational opposites, but differ in spatial direction and hold temporal relationships. "Ask and offer" may expect "reply and accept", but the 'expectation' may not be realized. But reply and accept 'presuppose' that there has been an act of asking or giving.

The 'true' gradable antonyms can be handled in terms of relational opposites) wide can be seen as wider than the norm; if a is wider than b, b is narrower than a). The comparative forms (the explicitly gradable ones) "wider and narrower" are relational opposites. They are, moreover, transitive  (if a is wider than b and b is wider than c, a is wider than c), but not symmetric or reflexive. However, as wide as, as narrow as, etc.; are symmetric, transitive and reflexive. (source: educationcing.blogspot.com)

Relational Antonyms are kind of like complementary antonyms because they are “either/or” words.  The difference is that a relationship must be present between the two words.  One exists only because the other does.

(If someone wins, someone must lose; if there is a fraction, there must be a whole.)

above                    below all                          nothing asleep                   awake beginning               end behind                   ahead buy                       sell east                       west floor                      ceiling front                      back give                       get hello                      goodbye high                       low hunter                   prey husband                wife lead                      follow

leave                      arrive                left                         right                lend                       borrow                lock                       unlock                lost                         found                north                      south                offense                  defense                open                      close                output                    input                parent                    child                slave                      master                to                           from                top                         bottom                trap                        release                up                          down