Glossary:Negated Antonymy

Negated Antonymy

Pronounciation

/nɪˈɡeɪtɪt ˈæntənɪmi/

General definition

Negated Antonymy is used to emphasize one term by denying the other.

General pattern

X, not Y

Example

That's not little, it's big.
The public has cause for pessimism, not optimism.

References

• Jones, Stephen; Murphy, M. Lynne (2005). Using corpora to investigate antonym acquisition. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 10:3. John Benjamin Publishing Company.
• Murphy, M. Lynne; Jones, Stephen (2008 November). Antonyms in children's and child-directed speech. First language 28 (4[87]).