Cognitive and communicative sources of Enantiosemy

Abstract

[Abstract] Enantiosemy arises from semantic shifts when the meaning of a sign takes two different paths with the resulting formation of two opposite meanings. My claim is that enantiosemy is a regular phenomenon depending on general principles of cognition and communication; the sources of enantiosemy being of a great variety. The most common sources of enantiosemy (the most of examples are from the Russian language). 1. Polarization of actants. Example: odolzhit’ (i) ‘to lend’; (ii) ‘to borrow’; cf. English to lease, French hôte, etc. 2. Conventionalization of pragmatic inferences. Example: bukval’no — (i) ‘not figuratively or metaphorically’ (e. g. Ne ponimaj ego bukval’no ‘Don’t take his words literally’); (ii) ‘to be taken figuratively or metaphorically’ (e. g. Ona bukval’no vyletela iz komnaty ‘She literally flew from the room’). 3. Conventionalization of irony. Example: ochen’ nuzhno — (i) Mne ochen’ nuzhno tuda pojti (perfective infinitive) ‘I need to go there’; (ii) Ochen’ nuzhno tuda xodit’ (imperfective infinitive) ‘There is no need to go there.’ 4. Conventionalization of evaluation (provided that evaluation may be different). Example: Church Slavonic vonja ‘aroma’ vs. Russian von’ ‘stink’. 5. Revaluation of a term of abuse. Example: the words shel’ma and shel’mec ‘rogue, rascal, scoundrel’ often express approval or admiration. 6. «Mixed feelings». Example: Polish litosc ‘compassion’ and Russian ljutost’ ‘ferocity, fierceness’ have the same origin. 7. Opposite results of similar actions. Examples: (1) zadut’: On zadul svechu ‘He blew the candle out’ vs. zadut’ domnu ‘to blow in a blast furnace’; (2) Belorussian luchyc’, Polish laczyc (‘to join’), on the one hand, and Bulgarian lucha, Serbian luchiti, Czech louciti (‘to separate’), on the other hand, have the same origin: they go back to Common Slavonic *laciti (probably ‘to bend’). 8. Opposite ways to achieve similar results. Example: Serbian spor ‘slow’ and Russian sporyj ‘fast’ go back to the same adjective with the original meaning ‘abundant, plentiful’. To make the output abundant, one has to work either longer (hence connotation of slowness) or more efficiently (hence connotation of quickness). 9. Temporal metaphors (passing time vs. passing through time). Example: vpered: Zasedanie pereneseno na dva chasa vpered — (i) ‘The session will take place two hours earlier than originally scheduled’; (ii) ‘The session will take place two hours later than originally scheduled.’ 10. Temporal metonymy. Example: nedelja ‘Sunday’ (e. g. nedelja torzhestva Pravoslavija ‘Orthodoxy Sunday’) vs. ‘working week’ (e. g. Na nedele menja doma ne byvaet ‘I am not at home during the week’); cf. Italian ferie ‘holidays’ vs. giorno feriale ‘weekday’. The above list does not exhaust the sources of enantiosemy. In addition, enantiosemy may arise from various combinations of different mechanisms. In the paper, I will explicate the mechanisms involved and relate the data to a coherent theoretical analysis.