Abstract
The semantic meaning of relative antonyms AB is the absolute construal and relative construal of the properties of the object concerned, with the normal quantity being the reference point. When A which denotes higher salience or B which denotes lower salience appears individually in usage events, A is used in priority to B. The cognitive motivation lies in prominence, and the properties which enjoy a higher cognitive prominence are represented in priority to those which enjoy a lower cognitive prominence. When A and B co-occur in usage events, the difference in the lexical categories of AB (adjectives, nouns and adverbs) is motivated by their different semantic profiles.
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Ren, F. (2014). A Cognitive Grammar Approach to Relative Antonyms. In: Su, X., He, T. (eds) Chinese Lexical Semantics. CLSW 2014. Lecture Notes in Computer Science(), vol 8922. Springer, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14331-6_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-14331-6_8
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