A Study On The Symmetry And Asymmetry Of The Adjective Antonyms "Soft/Hard"

The symmetry and asymmetry is a common phenomenon in linguistics, so lots of scholars pay more attention to the asymmetry of adjective antonyms refers to a group of words have opposite meanings. In this paper, we take the antonyms "soft/hard" as the object of the research. Based on the markedness theory, cognitive linguistics theory and metaphor theory, we study the symmetry and asymmetry of the adjective "soft/hard" from the synchronic and diachronic perspective. Then we analyze the motivation of the asymmetry phenomenon deeply.The thesis consists of six chapters:The first chapter:Introduction. This chapter mainly discusses the purpose and significance of the research, present situation and the existing problems, research methods and data sources of this paper.The second chapter:The symmetry and asymmetry of the adjective antonyms "soft/ hard" in the lexical level.This chapter is divided into four parts. To begin with we will compare the meanings of the "soft" and "hard",then followed by the words meaning, the paper reviews the word-formation ability from two aspects, the one is the total number of the words that consist of the meanings, the other is the number of the words constitute by the contrary meanings. The last part of the chapter focuses on whether the form and meaning of words are symmetrical or not. Through the analysis, we can drew a conclusion that the adjective antonyms "soft" and "hard" are symmetrical in general at the lexical level, however, there exists asymmetry among these words.The third chapter:The comparation of "soft" and "hard" in the modifier and modified level. By taking the components that combined with "soft/hard" as the breakthrough point, this chapter mainly discuss the symmetry and asymmetry of the two shown in the collocation of nouns, verbs and adverbs. In addition, we explain the asymmetry phenomenon based on the cognitive theory and the semantic extension of "soft/hard".The forth chapter:The symmetry and asymmetry of the adjective antonyms "soft/ hard" in the syntactic level. This chapter mainly analyses whether "soft" and "hard" are symmetrical or not from the syntactic perspective. Then the research shows that:the symmetry and asymmetry of "soft" and "hard" are co-exist. Especially the asymmetry of "soft" and "hard" has a certain particularity. The author thinks that the asymmetrical phenomenon has a close relation with the lexical category and extended meaning of the antonyms "soft" and "hard".The fifth chapter:The diachronic study of "soft/hard". This chapter mainly systematically analyze the semantic development of the adjective antonyms "soft " and " hard".Then we discuss the asymmetry between the two words from the time of the semantic extension, the form of the semantic evolution and the scope of the semantic extension.The sixth chapter:Analyze the motivation of the "soft/hard" asymmetry. Based on the markedness theory, this chapter investigate the main reason that causing the asymmetry of the two adjective antonyms. Moreover, the degree of the semantic generalization and the word formation in different ways also cause the asymmetry.