Analyze and comment on the following.What characteristic of antonyms does the following pair of sentence demonstrate?A) How tall is his brother?B) How short is his brother?
Analyze and comment on the following.What characteristic of antonyms does the following pair of sentence demonstrate?A) How tall is his brother?B) How short is his brother?
【正确答案】:

ANTONYMS DIFFER IN SEMANTIC INCLUSION. PAIRS OF ANTONYMS ARE SEEN AS MARKED AND UNMARKED TERMS RESPECTIVELY. IN MANY PAIRS WE FIND ONE MEMBER IS MORE SPECIFIC THAN THE OTHER AND THE MEANING OF THE SPECIFIC IS INCLUDED IN THAT OF THE GENERAL. SO FAR AS THE MEANING IS CONCERNED, SENTENCE A INCLUDES THE MEANING OF SENTENCE B. THE USE OF TALL DOES NOT EXCLUDE THE POSSIBILITY OF HIS BROTHER BEING SHORT. BUT SENTENCE B IS MUCH MORE RESTRICTED IN SENSE AND IS CONSIDERED SEMANTICALLY ABNORMAL UNLESS THE SPEAKER IS PARTICULARLY INTERESTED IN THE ’SHORTNESS’ OF HIS BROTHER OR CURIOUS ENOUGH TO FIND OUT HOW SHORT HIS BROTHER IS. 


【题目解析】:反义词在语义包含方面有所不同。成对的反义词分别被称为有标记项和无标记项。在许多配对中,我们发现一个成员比另一个成员更具体,并且这个特定的意义包含在一般的意义中。就其意义而言,A句包括B句的意思。tall的使用并不排除他的兄弟矮小的可能性。但是,句子B在意义上更受限制,被认为是语义上的异常,除非说话人对意义特别感兴趣或是对兄弟的矮小身高感兴趣。
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