Janus word
A Janus word (after the god Janus , also Autoantonym ) is a word with at least two meanings , one meaning the opposite of others ( "Auto-Antonymie"). Janus words are related to each other at the same time antonym ( having an opposite meaning ) and homonym .
The complementary appearance is the synonymy of actually antonymic words, such as B. in practical and theoretical . Here there is an interchangeability in colloquial expressions such as “You can omit that practically / theoretically” , which has arisen through desemantization , without the sentence meaning changing, which is why it should be avoided in technical language.
Designations
The linguist Andreas Blank speaks of autoantonymy . The terms Antagonym and Kontranym are new loan translations and rare in the German language .
The English term antagonistic was invented by Charles N. Ellis, who maintains a list of English Janus words on the Internet. The term auto-antonymy was proposed in 1994 by Alex Eulenberg.
Occurrence
In practice, Janus words appear seldom due to their ambiguity. They are a little more common in English than in German. They can arise through a change in meaning ( polysemy ) or phonetic ( homophony ) or written coincidence ( homography ) of different words.
Most of the time, the intended meaning is clear from the context of the sentence, sometimes just from the linguistic variety . For example, the word shoal in nautical science stands for a very shallow depth ( un- as negation ), but outside of seafaring it stands for a very large (immeasurable) depth ( augmentation with un- ). In other cases, apparent Janus words in the word accent differ ( bypass - bypassed ) or are syntactically or in terms of thematic role their reference dictionary regions (eg. Transitive / intransitives stop un- / animate object to stop ).
Examples in German
- cover
- With a cover e.g. B. protect from looks or dust, cover, cover ', z. B. cover the corpse / furniture
- 'Remove the cover, take something away', e.g. B. cover the roof / table / mare
- Indeed
- 'However, but' (expresses a restriction)
- 'Of course, of course, of course, of course' (as an emphatic affirmation with a spoken exclamation mark)
- stop
- 'To continue, to continue', e.g. B. The travel stream at the beginning of the holiday will probably continue for the whole weekend.
- 'Hold up, bring to a standstill', e.g. B. The traffic jam forced many travelers to stop at the weekend
- cancel
- 'Preserve / maintain by not using, possibly for later'
- 'Eliminate, abolish, annul'
- give up
- 'Leave open'
- 'Give up / close'
- Remove
- 'Take out, remove, dismantle'
- 'Enlarge according to plan'
- except / apart from
- 'Excluded' (excluding), e.g. B. She likes all citrus fruits except oranges
- 'Next to, in addition to, at the same time with' (including), e.g. B. In addition to oranges, she also likes grapefruits
- to adjust
- 'Set something up so that it works without errors, set it up, make it functional' e.g. B. set the television (the telephone system / ...)
- 'Quit, take out of service' e.g. B. the rail traffic (the production / the project / ...) was stopped
- exclusive
- 'excluded, not included'
- , (only from this option) includes' e.g. B. exclusive advantages of a customer card / membership etc.
- certainly
- 'Certain, sure, of course'; if not attributive, e.g. B. the result (the victory / the winner / ...) is already certain ,
- 'Indefinite, vague, not precisely nameable'; if attributive, e.g. B. a certain amount; under certain conditions
- basically / in principle
- 'generally valid, without exception'
- , usually, mostly, apart from certain exceptions'
- Claustrophobia
- 'Fear of wide open spaces', agoraphobia (scientific)
- 'Fear of tight spaces', claustrophobia (colloquial)
- Quantum leap
- 'Particularly large or significant improvement' (colloquial)
- 'Smallest possible change of state' (physical)
- sanction
- 'Give legal force', 'approve', 'approve'
- 'Threaten with punishment', 'punish', 'impose sanctions'
- overlooked
- 'See completely (from above), have an overview'
- 'Don't see / notice, see past'
- drive around
- (in the spoken language the meaning is recognizable due to the intonation)
- 'Drive around (past) an obstacle' (emphasis on "driving")
- 'Drive against an obstacle so that it falls over' (emphasis on "over-")
- (cf. the poem by Robert Gernhardt : "A little man stands in the forest / very still and mute / if I don't drive around it / then I drive it around.")
- shallow
- nautical: 'shallow spot in a body of water'
- colloquial: 'great depth'
- saying goodbye
- 'To decide': to pass a law
- 'Discard', e.g. B. say goodbye to a thought
literature
- Peter Rolf Lutzeier: Dictionary of the opposite sense in German. 3 volumes, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007–2018.
Web links
supporting documents
- ↑ A. Blank: Introduction to lexical semantics for Romanists. 2001.
- ^ Charlie Ellis: Antagonyms: Derivation of the word “antagonym” by the author. University of Michigan , January 1, 1999, accessed April 2, 2018 .
- ↑ Alex Eulenberg: Sum: Words that are their own opposites. In: LINGUIST List 6.74. January 20, 1995, accessed April 2, 2018 .
- ↑ cover. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved August 28, 2019
- ↑ however. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved August 28, 2019
- ↑ Peter Rolf Lutzeier: Dictionary of the opposite sense in German. Volume 1: A-G . Walter de Gruyter, Berlin / New York 2007, ISBN 978-3-11-019000-7 , p. 27 (accessed via De Gruyter Online).
- ↑ stop. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved October 9, 2019
- ↑ cancel. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved August 28, 2019
- ↑ release. In: Duden .
- ↑ expand. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved August 28, 2019
- ↑ next to. Next. In: duden.de, accessed on October 9, 2019.
- ↑ set. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved August 28, 2019
- ↑ certainly. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved October 9, 2019
- ↑ basically. Duden , accessed on April 2, 2018 : “Following a principle, accordingly; on principle, without exception / with the reservation of certain exceptions; in general, usually "
- ↑ Systematic and alphabetical index ("Diagnosenthesaurus") of the ICD-10-GM 2018, Sigle F40.00. In: icdscout.de, accessed on August 28, 2019.
- ↑ Claustrophobia. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved August 28, 2019
- ↑ shoal. Duden, accessed on April 2, 2018 .
- ↑ shoal. In: Digital dictionary of the German language . Retrieved August 28, 2019