| Antonym,as a typical sense relation,has always been paid much attention in the academic field.In the past,most researchers investigated antonym pairs from paradigmatic relations,mainly studying semantic evolution paths.Moreover,most researches adopted the traditional qualitative research method to analyze antonym pairs,but the corpus-based behavioral profile method is rarely used to reveal their subtle differences between antonym pairs.There are a lot of measure antonyms,but previous researches mainly focused on SIZE and LENGTH dimensions.Previous researches on the antonym pair denoting weight are still relatively rare.The study has suggested that the pair “light/heavy” is not only used to indicate weight,but also has rich meanings.And their meanings can be extended to many other domains.Based on data from the British National Corpus and adopting both the quantitative and qualitative research methods,this study makes a comparative analysis of English antonym pair “light/heavy” from the semantic and syntactic perspectives by applying conceptual metaphor theory and markedness theory.It focuses on their similarities and differences in actual usage as well as the analysis of the mechanisms underlying their similarities and differences.The major findings are summarized as follows: firstly,in terms of semantics,the similarities and differences between “light” and “heavy” are mainly reflected in the following three aspects: based on conceptual metaphor,“light” and “heavy” can be extended from weight domain to psychological domain,auditory domain,natural domain,olfactory domain,taste domain,activity domain and entity domain;the extended domains between “light” and “heavy” also show some difference.“Light”can be extended to location and color domain;“light” can be extended to speed domain,indicating the fast speed of a machine,whereas “heavy” can not be extended to speed domain.Secondly,in terms of syntax,the similarities and differences between “light” and “heavy” are mainly reflected in the following two aspects: 1)When used as an attributive in the sentence,“light” tends to be used to modify nouns indicating color,food and and psychological feature/state,whereas “heavy” tends to be used to modify nouns indicating artefact and natural objects.“Light” is often used to modify nouns indicating attribute of an entity,but “heavy” is often used to modify nouns indicating the rule;2)When used as a predicative in the sentence,the subject of“light” is usually an expression of an individual noun,but the subject of “heavy” is often an abstract noun.Based on the above findings,this study further analyzes the motivations underlying the similarities and differences between “light” and “heavy”.According to the corpus analysis and based on conceptual metaphor,metaphorical meanings of“light/heavy” are symmetrical.Based on markedness theory,unmarked terms can appear in many contexts,widely distributed and frequently used,whereas marked terms are opposite to unmarked items.In daily communication,people tend to use unmarked terms.“Heavy” is the unmarked word,while “light” is regarded as the marked word.Therefore,in actual usage,people tend to use “heavy” rather than“light”,which leads to asymmetrical usage between them.Based on authentic data from the corpus,this study makes a comparative analysis of the antonym pair “light/heavy”.The findings are helpful to deepen people’s understanding of the features of antonym pairs.Moreover,based on the corpus,this study adopts hierarchical configural frequency analysis(HCFA)to analyze the usage of the pair when used as an attributive and a predicative in the sentences,which will open new avenue for future studies of measure antonyms.In addition,this study illustrates the domains to which this pair extends with examples,which is helpful for the dictionary interpretation of “light” and “heavy”. |
