Synchrone and diachrone aspects of enantiosemy

Abstract

The phenomenon of semantic shifts in the lexical meaning of a word in the language system is known as enantiosemy. Notwithstanding an increased attention to the problem of enantiosemy by scholars (Benkovičová (1993), Böhmerová (1997), Traugott (2006), Liberman (2009) et al.) there is still no generally accepted definition of enantiosemy. Our research is motivated by the necessity to determine its status in linguistics. The objective of the paper is threefold: to clarify its niche in language structure; to decompose the lexical meaning of the enantiosemes, and differentiate its types in discourse. The discourse analysis proves the influence of discourse register on the shifts of the semantic meaning components in the lexical meaning of the referred units. The enantiosemy is the coexistence of apparently contradictory components in the word lexical meaning (Traugott, 2006), cf.: it constitutes a special form of ambiguity (Gambarara, 2013). We define the enantiosemy as a lexical category that is based on the semantic component opposition in the lexical structure of the word. The following types of enantiosemy are singled out: lexical; semantic; phraseological; evaluative; and stylistic or ironic. Enantiosemy is based on the existence of the two opposite meanings in one lexeme that appear in the circle of a language unit. It arises from semantic shifts when the semantic meaning of a lexeme splits with the formation of two opposite meanings. Analysis of enantiosemy reveals some analogous groups in the sense of relation of opposition. And due to the coexistence of opposite components (negatively-marked and positively-marked) in the semantics of place name it can be viewed as enantiosemic unit and the shift between components according to the discourse register is shown. The status of enantiosemy among related linguistic phenomena is determined in the paper.