CC BY
21UDC 81'42
DOI: 10.17223/24109266/9/10
TEXT COHESION VIA THE PRESUPPOSITION BASE REALIZED THROUGH ANTONYMY OF LANGUAGE UNITS
H.Zh. Tovmasyan
Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences (Yerevan, Armenia) E-mail: [email protected]
Abstract. The article dwells upon discourse coherence and text cohesion via frame- and / or stereotype-generated presuppositions what are actualized on the surface structure of the text via antonyms. The article suggests a framework of the text gerenation process based on the content of the presupposition base of the speaking individual whose information units are stored through larger mental structures, that is, frames and stereotypes. The paper instantiates the functioning of the two planes of the presupposition base, i.e. phenomeno-logical and linguistic. The findings of the study manifest that antonymy is one of the linguistic, cognitive structures that displays the content of the discourse, the intent of the addresser and thereby secures text cohesion. Keywords: presupposition; presupposition base; antonym; antonym cohesion; text cohesion; discourse coherence; anaphora; frame; stereotype; macro-presupposition; micropresupposition; cognitive structures.
Introduction
Over the past few decades, with the headway of pragmatics, psycho-linguistics, cognitive linguistics and ethnolinguistics there have appeared such notions as the presupposition, frame, stereotype, precedent phenomenon, cognitive structure, and many others which disclose the actual functioning of human thinking activity and its linguistic output - text - via patterned background knowledge. The main aim of the article is to elucidate a serviceable framework of how text cohesion is achieved by means of antonym pairs / chains which in fact act as staples of parts of the polypredicative unit or text. As such antonyms serve as anaphora of parts of the polypredicative unit or text and discourse entities.
The discourse referent(s) to which antonyms refer to are in fact discourse presuppositions. Such kind of text-discourse anaphora via antonym chains of the text secure discourse coherence and text cohesion. Besides, it also secures the actualization of the macropresupposition of the text, that is, the general topic of the text, since it is actually a co-reference of its parts both on the surface level via antonyms and deep level via antonym-presupposition anaphora. A pivotal part in this respect is allotted to the notions of frame and stereotype as they are in fact presuppositional structures, that is, units of the presupposition base of the speaking individual. In the present paper I aim to work out a framework of how the presupposition base
of the speaking individual secures discourse coherence and text cohesion via the antonyms that appear in its surface structure giving insight of how a text is structured in two planes - discourse and text.
I find it timely to define the notion of the speaking individual, proceeding from the scientific data [1, 2]. It is noteworthy that initially the term linguistic individual appeared in research literature before it was introduced into the sphere of scientific terminology by Yu. Karaulov [1]. Further, this idea was developed in the work of B. Johnstone [2]. Both scholars view the linguistic individual as a human being who is endowed with the potential of learning a language and who masters it in the process of his / her socialization. Thus, in my understanding the linguistic individual is in fact the language speaker. I term it the speaking individual as the speech counterpart of the language invariant - linguistic individual.
As for the presupposition base (notion and term proposed by me) (PB henceforth) it is the bulk of knowledge and ideas which are first reflected and then shaped as such in a human being's consciousness as a result of the cognitive, speculative process which starts at his / her birth and develops throughout his / her life.
The notion of the PB takes a supreme importance and becomes a core concept in this paper as frames and stereotypes are actually units of it and they may appear on the surface structure of the text by way of antonyms. Another key characteristic of the frame and stereotype is that due to the content of their semantic structure very often they require equivalent semes to embody their meaning in the text. One type of reflection of the content of their semantic structure in the text is anaphoric antonym chains.
Research and Results
It is worthy to mention that text cohesion heavily relies on the content and functioning of the PB of the speaking individual. Viewed from this perspective, to achieve discourse coherence and text cohesion the speaking individual operates the potential of his / her PB in two directions. First, he / she creates a coherent discourse, that is, inner speech, by means of the phe-nomenological, cognitive component of the PB which fully complies with the given communicative setting and his / her communicative aims. What poses special interest here is that this process is based on frame / stereotype semantics, which means that the speaking individual makes a choice from among the frames / stereotypes of his / her PB whose component presuppositions maximally comply with the communicative setting and the addresser's communicative intent(s). In fact, the discourse is structured by means of the presuppositions of the frame / stereotype that were introduced in it. Then, the addresser operates the linguistic, cognitive component of his / her PB to create a cohesive text which in this particular case is achieved via antonymy as
a linguistic, cognitive structure. Obviously, antonymy here is a way of co-referring parts of the text or those of a polypredicative unit with the discourse macropresupposition, i.e. its topic, which comes to testify that regardless of opposing meanings the text rests in the framework of the discourse macropresupposition. Evidence suggests that basically discourse reflects the phenomenological, cognitive component of the speaking individual's PB. Resultantly, a coherent discourse contains PB-based frame(s) and / or stereotype^). Further, having a clear perception of the predictable, presupposition-al structure of the frame / stereotype, the speaking individual chooses those frame / stereotype presuppositions from its semantic field that will be placed in the discourse, thus converting the frame / stereotype knowledge into discourse presuppositions. Finally, text cohesion is achieved via anaphora when the discourse presuppositions appear on the surface structure of the text as antonyms. Thus, antonymy in the given case functions as a linguistic maker in the text of discourse frame / stereotype presuppositions.
Evidence is adduced that text cohesion via antonymy makes it salient that regardless of the fact that they refer to different phenomena in real life, more specifically, their referents belong to completely different domains, nonetheless, there does exist some common semantic feature that unifies them and for which antonyms serve as distinctive features. Having as base that common feature, they can become part of the same frame / stereotype which allows of their contrary use in the same text, preserving the common meaning. In other words, text cohesion via antonymy largely depends on discourse coherence. The latter in its turn is stipulated by adequate actualization of the predictable, presuppositionsal structure of the frame / stereotype in the discourse. Results demonstrate that antonymy is one of the linguistic, cognitive structures of the speaking individual's PB which means that the same discourse could be actualized on the surface structure of the text via other linguistic, cognitive structures of the PB. Instead, the addresser structures the inner speech - discourse - in such a way as to create an opposition between the frame / stereotype presuppositions introduced in it, thus achieving contast, controversy, comparison, cause-effect relation, etc. towards another entity in the discourse whose best actualization in the text is antonymy.
Note that a certain unit acquires the status of an antonym in the given microtext or polypredicatve construction only when in one of its subsequent parts there appears an entity whose meaning is similar to the antecedent entity but is opposing to it in a certain semantic feature. By its nature the opposing distinctive feature can be quite diverse, namely, contextual, stylistic, semantic / ideographic, etc. whose status is ascertained on the account of the pragmatic factors of the communicative setting.
Among the active means of actualizing the discourse in language and stapling parts of a polypredicative construction or a microtext is antonym pairs which compose a semantically equipotent opposition. In other words,
the discourse structure is completely "indifferent" to the choice of the basis underlying the opposing, antonym units, i.e. opposing or complementary, systemic or contextual, as well as what part of speech units they are expressed by. What is more essential here is the co-reference of the antonym entities within the same polypredicative construction or microtext and their anaphora with certain opposing, discourse presuppositions which display "an opposition in the scope of the same entity which is perceived as an extreme divergence of some distinction of that entity" [3: 150]. The common semantic feature coupled with the distinctive, semantic one point to the fact that they refer to the same frame / stereotype, more specifically, they are presuppositions of its semantic, structural terminals. Thus, the joint appearance of antonym lexemes in the same microtext or a polypredicative construction stands for the linguistic actualization of the given discourse frame / stereotype. The latter in its turn is pragmatically driven, that is, the addresser, on account of his / her communicative aims, actualizes the frame / stereotype in the discourse in such a way as to realize them. Given the realization of the addresser's communicative aim requires comparison, opposition, controversy, contradiction, cause-effect relation, the presuppositional content of the frame / stereotype will appear on the surface structure of the text via antonyms.
For two entities to function as antonyms, i.e. for the actualization of opposing meanings, there must be at least one implicit means of expression of the common meaning. In this regard, E. Kuznetsova claims that "The repetition of the common meanings in the same row in the sentence seems to back up each other, securing the mutual identity of meanings of the words" [4: 89], which stipulates regular, joint use of antonyms and their syntagmatic valency.
Antonym lexemes, especially if they are the linguistic actualizations of the frame / stereotype presuppositions in the text, intensify the relations of opposition or contrast between its predicative parts.
In this study I have considered the principal classifications of antonyms proposed by V. Eliseeva [5], Z. Kharitonchik [6], J. Lyons [7] and many others [8-14]. Of multiple types of classifications of antonyms for the present study I have adopted the following classification singled out by the above-mentioned scholars - gradable antonyms (contraries), complementary antonyms (contradictions), relational antonyms (converses) and directional antonyms (reverses).
Of main interest in the literature are still the first and the second categories.
Gradable antonyms or contraries (from the Latin word contrarius) express quality relations and compose a range of scale. There must be at least one intermediary member between the extreme ones. The negation of one gradable member does not necessarily guarantee the truth of other member, thus creating the possibility of existence other states than the one described by the extreme antonym members. This is because the gradable an-
tonyms are based on a range of scale. For these reasons, the first relation is called bounded and the second is called unbounded [11]. For example, young - middle-aged - elderly - old (person), hard - not so hard - not hard -easy (issue), etc.
Complementary antonyms or contradictions (from the Latin word com-plementum) complement each other on grounds of type and are marginal by nature which means they do not have an intermediary member. Accordingly, when one member is negated the other holds. That is, they presuppose a definite 'ei-ther-or' mode [12]. For example, true - false (the not true variant does not hold), alive - dead (the not alive or half-alive variants do not hold).
Directional antonyms or reverses (from the Latin word vector) express reverse directions of actions and features. For example, enter - go out, raise - lower, turn on - turn off.
The distinctive feature of directional antonyms is in their lexical-syntactic opposition. For example, I am coming home - You are leaving home. "Reverse" verbs express a subject-object twofold relation, that is, the object is the same, while the agents expressed by the subject are different. On the other hand, the verbs express the same action in "reverse" directions. For example, to buy a house - to sell a house, to obtain friends - lose friends, etc.
In the case of relational antonyms or converses (from the Latin word contradictorius) one member of the antonym pair is made up with the particle not and is not clearly defined. For example, young - not young (which can be middle-aged, elderly, old, senile, etc.), expensive - not expensive (which can be cheap, not so cheap, depreciated, etc.).
Let's consider some examples if gradable antonyms that create con-trastive relations.
Deep down, I'm pretty superficial (Ava Gardner).
In Ava Gardner's above-cited, famous saying the gradables deep - superficial create a coherent discourse and cohesive text through the ideology of the frame / stereotype human inner world. By his / her inner world a human being can be deep, not deep, superficial, not superficial, shallow, flat, etc. First, the coherence of the discourse and the cohesion of the corresponding text are achieved by actualizing the above-mentioned frame / stereotype, second, by means of the common semantic feature of the gradable antonyms deep - superficial which shows that they function in the scope of one concept - macropresupposition. More specifically, they refer to the presuppositions of the same frame / stereotype actualized in the given discourse, thereby securing text cohesion. Besides, the distinctive features also point to the fact that despite differences in meaning, in the given case opposition, they act in the scope of a common meaning, that is, in the scope of the same frame / sterotype. Thus, a close inspection of discourse-text anaphora reveals that the speaking individual secures discourse coherence via the
phenomenological, cognitive component of his / her PB on the one hand, and the cohesion of the text via the linguistic, cognitive component of his / her PB on the other.
Consider another case of text cohesion via gradable antonyms, taken from the Old Testament.
И увидел Бог свет, что он хорош, и отделил Бог свет от тьмы. И назвал Бог свет днем, а тьму ночью. И был вечер, и было утро: день один [13].
Obviously, the coherence of the given microtext is based on the frame parts of the day whose content makes up the topic of the discourse. The semantic components of the frame are actualized on the surface structure of the text by means of gradables утро, день, вечер, ночь. In fact, the gradable antonym chain secures text cohesion since the mentioned surface structure entities refer to the pertinent presuppositions of the frame actualized in the discourse. Regardless of the fact that these lexical entities are contrary in meaning, nonetheless, they are unified in one frame by means of its conceptual meaning, more specifically, the common semantic feature in that they all show different parts of the day. By this the speaking individual secures discourse coherence and text cohesion. Thus, text cohesion is achieved on the one hand through the common semantic feature, repeated meaning, and on the other hand distinctive semantic feature. The content of the frame, namely, knowledge about different parts of the day, is a wholeness of presuppositions that are triggered on the surface structure of the text via gradable antonyms as their text markers.
The next type of antonyms that often serves the function of discourse coherence and text cohesion is complementaries. Complementary antonyms contain contrary semantic features too that are in the relation of opposition. In this regard J. Lyons holds that "Complimentariness can be viewed as a special case of incompatibility that contains inherent two-unit sets" [14: 486].
As in the case of gradable antonyms, in the case of complimentaries as well discourse coherence is secured through the actualization of the frame / stereotype underlying it, while the given type of antonymy simply serves the function of text cohesion on its surface level, reflecting the presuppositional content of the frame / stereotype and expressing both common and distinctive semantic features at the same time. Hence, complementary antonyms serve the function of anaphora of discourse presuppostions with pertinent parts of the text which actually creates a cohesive text. In this perspective consider an exerpt from the Old Testament.
In the beginning God created the heavens and the earth [15].
The complementary pairs above come up as extreme members of an entity that does not have intermediary components. The basis of the given part of the discourse is the frame the Universe which is actualized in the given text by its two principal parts - the heaven and the earth. Indeed, the top-
ic, that is, the macropresupposition of the frame the Universe is repeated in each of the complementary antonyms, nevertheless, the extreme opposition between them remains salient which is the inherent distinctive, semantic feature based upon the inherent, common one. The content of the frame the Universe, actualized in the given discourse, is a set of presuppositions. The surface structure means create a cohesive text implicitly referring to that information - discourse presuppositions. Accordingly, the text is cohesive on the one hand by virture of actualization of the frame presuppositions in the discourse, and on the other by means of anaphora of the text antonyms with pertinent disourse, frame presuppositions.
Text cohesion via antonimy relation has proved to be based on the two-plane functioning of the PB of the speaking individual - phenomenolog-ical to create a coherent discourse and linguistic to generate a cohesive text.
To facilitate the discussion of complementary antonym pairs that serve the function of text cohesion consider an exerpt taken from Ch. Dickens's "A Tale of Two Cities" where the eight complementary antonym pairs, accouring to K. Chukovsky, secure the "rhythm of the opposition that passes through the whole book" and creates an ambient of confusion and extremism in the in the backstage of French Revolution [19: 180].
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times, it was the age of wisdom, it was the age of foolishness, it was the epoch of belief, it was the epoch of incredulity, it was the season of Light, it was the season of Darkness, it was the spring of hope, it was the winter of despair, we had everything before us, we had nothing before us, we were all going direct to Heaven, we were all going direct the other way- in short, the period was so far like the present period, that some of its noisiest authorities insisted on its being received, for good or for evil, in the superlative degree of comparison only [17].
In the given exerpt the highlighted eight complementary antonym pairs best - worst; wisdom - foolishness; belief - incredulity; Light - Darkness; hope - despair; everything - nothing; Heaven - the other way; for good - for evil embody the ideology of the frame / stereotype French Revolution, completing its presuppositional terminals. In fact, discourse coherence heavily relies on the content of the terminals. Each of these comple-mentaries possesses the meaning of the ideology of French Revolution by way of some presupposition of the frame / stereotype.
The above discussed analysis exemplifies that the choice of antonyms to embody a certain frame / stereotype presupposition of the discourse is most often quite sujcective, context-bound and is largely dependent on the perception of the addresser's intent, that is, the pragmatic aspect plays a pivotal role in the procees of discourse and text generation, understanding and appropriate interpretation.
The above-delineated two basic types of oppositions do not deplete the whole range of antonym relations. Antonym cohesion [18] can serve the cohesion of such parts of a polypredicative unit whose contrastive relations appear when the logical opposition of the concepts underlying them is expressed linguistically. These are in fact directional antonyms. In this regard consider the following example.
The woman was bawling out the fat maitre d'hotel, two waiters were picking up dishes and going away with them, and two other waiters were coming back with other dishes; and the woman was telling them all precisely what she wanted and how she wanted it, in French. They were whispering replies in English [19: 273].
Text cohesion is achieved here due to a coherent discourse which in its turn is secured via the content of the frame/ stereotype event organization and directional antonyms. On top of all expected activity in an event organization, namely, waiters were picking up dishes; woman was telling them all precisely what she wanted and how she wanted it, etc., there are also directional antoynms that serve the function of text cohesion, they are two waiters going away with them - and two other waiters were coming back with other dishes. Analysis demonstrates that anaphora between discourse, stereotype presuppositions and the text, i.e. cohesion, is achieved through directional antonyms which actually serve as linguistic markers of discourse, stereotype presuppositions in the text.
From the standpoint of antonym functions in text cohesion processes it is worthy to mention that not all cases of antonym pair cohesion serve the function of semantic opposition or contrast. Most often there are quite other logical-semantic relations. Overall the occurrence of the antonym having much the property of cause-effect relations is quite common. Indeed, their contrastive nature is revealed in context only, that is the contrast between the parts of a text or a polypredicative construction discloses on the one hand the repeated semantic feature in them, and on the other hand the disctinctive one. In this regard consider an exerpt from B. Akunin's novel "Azazel".
Вдруг фонари повели себя чудно - завертелись, закружились, и стало сначала очень ярко, а потом совсем темно [20: 63].
Obviously, the use of directional antonyms стало ярко - (стало) темно in this part does not serve the function of opposition or contrast but rather that of cause-effect relation, though it is not perceivable at first glance and becomes salient only after the perception of the macropresupposition of the given part. Nonetheless, the oppositional nature and the specific function of the antonym pair in question are undeniable. The discourse presupposition of the first element of the directional antonym pair is that because of some short circuit the light of the street lights became very bright, i.e. there was a flashlight. The discourse presupposition of the second member of the directional antonym pair is that because of the short circuit the light went out as
the light bulbs of the street lights got out of order. In this case text cohesion is achieved via each of the the directional antonyms anaphora with certain discourse presupposition - one to the cause, the other to the effect, while discourse coherence is secured through the content of the frame / stereotype electricity short circuit. Indeed, the directional antonym pair is the linguistic expression of the frame / stereotype presuppositions in the text.
Such functioning of antonymy proves quite natural, that is, one the one hand the mutual exclusion of meaning typical of antonymy which is based on the disctinctive semantic feature and cause-effect relations on the other hand. "...the existence of an affirmative and a negative counterparts... and the seme not which is a part of one of the counterparts" [21: 15] allows to employ such constructions to express textual modality which is based on affirmative-negative polar, oppositional semantic feature. Given the oppos-tional, polar semantics of antonyms V. Melikyan claims that "The categories of the affirmative and the negative are mutually conditioned in any situation. they occur simultaneously, exist only in mutual opposition, they are two halves of one whole" [22: 179]. Accordingly, if an affirmative counterpart comes in the precedent part of the text or a polypredicative unit, then in the subsequent part there must be the counterpart with the seme not, more specifically, the member that lacks that feature. For instance, in the above-cited example the counterpart стало ярко shows that the conterpart (стало) темно possesses the seme not in that it does not have the semantic feature inherent in the first one. The latter is a linguistic, cognitive knowledge generating from the PB of the speaking individual which is actualized in the text as a presupposition, implicitly referring to a corresponding part(s) of the discourse and secure text cohesion at its surface level.
Interestingly, the last type of antonymy, namely, relational antonyms or converses is grammatical, based on the opposition of syntactic constructions whose negative collocate is represented by the particle not. It allows of some semnatic incompleteness, i.e. freedom of interpretation. Text cohesion ordinarily proceeds from discourse coherence. The choice of the given type of antonymy is basically stipulated by the realization of the addresser's intends) for which he / she could have chosen another syntactic construction from among the linguistic, cognitive structures of his / her PB. In this regard consider an excerpt from B. Akunin's novel "Azazel".
Агатовые глаза Клеопатры недобро блеснули:
- Ого, как ему не терпится. Вы что же, миллионщик?
- Нет, я небогат, - скромно произнес Эраст Петрович. - но торговать удачей почитаю низким [20: 51].
The cohesion of the above-cited microtext is accounted for by the coherence of the discourse which in its turn is achieved by the actualization of the predictable, presuppositionsal structure of the frame / stereotype offer. Of all the possible linguistic, cognitive constructions available in his / her PB
the speaking individual has found it most pertinent to achieve the cohesion of the surface structure of the text via converses миллионщик - небогат. Obviously, the text cohesion potential of the converse antonym pair in question proceeds from its oppositional meaning. The particle not in the negative counterpart of the relational antonym pair points to the fact that it lacks the feature (being a millionaire) of the affirmative one. It is worthy to note here that due to the imprecise negative meaning of the particle not it allows of a wide scope of interpreatation, that is, the lexeme небогат can presuppose any degree of not being rich - not wealthy, of modest means, poor, etc. In other words, the proposition of one of the parts of the polypredicative construction is openly, explicitly manifest while the proposition of the other not. The interpretation and the scope of the proposition of the other is stipulated by the context only, thereby referring to the appropriate discourse presupposition and delineating the meaning of not.
What's more, the prevailing view is that the application of the given type of antonyms has a pragmatic asset in that the addresser thereby creates a discourse focus and does not shift the addressee's attention to other discourse-macropresupposition-relevant aspects. More specifically, the twofold allusion to the same discourse presupposition in the text speaks of the intent of the addresser, i.e. to actualize and impart special importance to a certain addresser-focused, discourse presupposition. Hence, in the present microtext the addresser among all other states of the hero emphasizes his being poor, thereby giving its presupposition a second linguistic actualization "as a result of employing negation to an earlier proposition used in the communication" [23: 44].
The presupposition of the opposition focus [24], namely, the delimitation of the presupposition of a certain part of a polypredicative construction by opposing it to to another presupposition of the same discourse results in the opposition of the presuppositions of the syntactic constructions which have affirmative / negative meaning. Resultantly, the part that comes after the syntactic construction with affirmative meaning acquires negative meaning. The antonym resolution implies that the application of such a construction stipulates not only the sequence of the parts of the polypredicative unit but also the choice of lexical means. The corefference of consecutive affirmative and negative parts allows of ascribing the status of antonyms to certain parts in it. Note that the "scope of content" of the second counterpart of the antonym pair is preconditioned by the PBs of the participants of the communication. More precisely, what presuppositions were introduced into the text by the addresser and how they were perceived and interpreted by the addressee.
From this perspective consider an example taken from korrespond-ent.net news web portal.
Не хочу продавать мой Милан. Да, я ищу кого-нибудь, кто хочет вкладывать деньги вместе со мной, чтобы снова сделать клуб лидером [25].
The microtext is cohesive due to two pairs of antonyms - one being relational не хочу - хочет, the other gradable продавать - вкладывать. Cohesion is achieved by making a certain discourse presupposition the focus of the text, that is, Silvio Berlusconi does not want to sell his football club "Milan". The cohesion of the given mictotext is furthered by the second antonym pair which is gradable. Its contrariety is stipulated by the fact that to buy - to sell gradable antonym pair allows of other intermediary counterparts between the two extreme ones, which was effectively used by the addresser as the verbs to sell and to invest are not direct antonyms. The latter also stands for the fact that any surface construction of the text chosen by the addresser to actualize discourse presuppositions are in fact the reflection of his / her PB in the text. In other words, the addresser has the given gradable an-yonym chain with common semantic feature in his / her PB but he / she choses the one which is presupposed from the discourse.
As witnessed by the analysis of the above-delineated examples, text cohesion via antonymy has local restrictions in that it ordinarily binds predicative entities or sentences that immediately follow each other. By means of anaphora they refer to the discourse presuppositions that back up their semantic content. Nonetheless, there exists a type of text cohesion by anton-ymy that operates within larger chunks of the text body. The lexeme pair that serves the function of antonyms here acquires that ststus in the given text only since outside that text they are ordinarily semantically non-related lexical entities. The given case as well substantiates the role of the speaking individual's PB in a communicatively-pertinent text generation process. In other words, the speaking individual "sees" the co-reference of these phenomena in his / her PB, more precisely, in his / her cognition of the world the two entities co-refer which allows him / her to create a communicatively and addresser- intent relevant, coherent discourse. The latter acquires a linguistic "body" through the linguistic, cognitive component of the PB. To elucidate the above-said consider an excerpt from a news article entitled "Here's who would win if Russia, China, and America went to war right now" taken from the wearethemighty.com news, web portal.
Stealth fighters
While America holds the current stealth jet lead with the only fielded fifth-generation fighter, Russia and China are both gunning for it. There are only 187 F-22s, and the F-35 that is supposed to be joining them is running into all sorts of problems in the test phase, including the hi-tech helmet that is supposed to put all kinds of info in the pilot's visor that doesn't work right yet.
Meanwhile, China is developing four stealth fighters. The J-31 debuted in air shows in 2014 and is the most advanced current threat, and the J-20, which may have just entered full-scale production, is probably a match for the F-35 if not the F-22. The two newest designs, the J-23 and J-25, are mostly rumors and Chinese propaganda right now.
Russia is developing only one stealth fighter but it has capabilities that some put on par with the F-22. The T-50 will likely enter service in late 2016 or early 2017. Also known as the PAK FA, it's less stealthy than the Raptor but more maneuverable. The F-22 would likely get a jump on the Russians in a war, but would be in serious trouble if it was spotted first [26].
The analysis of the given excerpt displays that the triplet America -China - Russia distantly allocated to one another in the text have acquired antonym status. The latter is ascribed to them due to the contrastive-oppositional meaning of their referet-presuppositions in the discourse. Firstly, the emphasized subjects of the three consecutive paragraphs stand in con-trastive relations. Secondly, due to the freedom of cohesive relations between the paragraphs the subjects abstract from the limits of the sentence in which they are actualized and operate as structural and semantic staples for the whole three-unit polypredicative construction. It serves as a micro-presupposition for the microtext that starts with it (America; China; Russia). The coherence of the given part of the discourse is achieved by the frame and stereotype arms potential in which the author of the article has demilited three subframes and / or substereotypes, namely, stealth fighters in America, stealth fighters in China and stealth fighters in Russia. Proceeding from the presuppositional frame of the discourse the author achieved the cohesion of the text by contrasting the three subframes. Resultantly, the subjects (America, China and Russia) of the microtexts truned into contextual antonyms whose antonym status becomes salient only after the discourse content and the addresser's intent are perceived, more precisely, by co-reffering the antonyms with corresponding focus-presuppositions of the discourse. The author deliberately juxtaposes the three micropresuppositions as three contras-tive aspects of the frame arms potential. The semantic relation between the three microtexts is that of mutual exclusion, regardless of the fact that all three contain the micropresupposition armed potential.
Indeed, antonym cohesion in the given part of the text stipulates both its semantic cohesion and structural unity, thereby securing the coherence of the given part of the discourse in general.
As delineated above, the peculiar rhythm of such antonym staples [27] also stipulates the lexical load of the microtext or polypredicative construction which proceeds from the predictable, presuppositional content of the frame and / or stereotype. The latter creates not a range of simply related words but rather a micronetwork of antonym chains with their own semantic slots that can also contain lexical units that stand in antonym relations as in the above analyzed example the pairs: to hold - to gun, less stealthy - more maneuverable, the 187 F-22 - the F-35. In other words the cohesion of the whole surface structure of the text is preconditioned by the macropresuppo-sition of the frame and / or stereotype and the presuppositions prodeeding from it. The speaking individual simply operates the linguistic, cognitive
structures of his / her PB to actualize them in the text. In this perspective consider a excerpt from L. Tolstoy's renowned novel "Anna Karenina".
Степан Аркадьич был человек правдивый в отношении к себе самому. Он не мог обманывать себя и уверять себя, что он раскаивается в своем поступке. Он не мог раскаиваться теперь в том, в чем он раскаивался когда-то лет шесть тому назад, когда он сделал первую неверность жене. Он не мог раскаиваться в том, что он, тридцатичетырехлетний, красивый, влюбчивый человек, не был влюблен в жену, мать пяти живых и двух умерших детей, бывшую только годом моложе его. Он раскаивался только в том, что не умел лучше скрыть от жены. Но он чувствовал всю тяжесть своего положения и жалел жену, детей и себя. Может быть, он сумел бы лучше скрыть свои грехи от жены, если б ожидал, что это известие так на нее подействует. Ясно он никогда не обдумывал этого вопроса, но смутно ему представлялось, что жена давно догадывается, что он не верен ей, и смотрит на это сквозь пальцы. Ему даже казалось, что она, истощенная, состарившаяся, уже некрасивая женщина и ничем не замечательная, простая, только добрая мать семейства, по чувству справедливости должна быть снисходительна. Оказалось совсем противное [28].
The coherence of the discourse of the delineated part of the novel is secured via the actualization of the frame and stereotype betrayal, and the subframe and substereotype remorse. Specifically, discourse coherence is based on the macropresupposition of that frame whose kernel-generated presuppositions stipulate the cohesion of the surface structure of the text. Thus, the author creates a coherent discourse via the phenomenological, cognitive component of his / her PB, and then shapes a cohesive text via the linguistic, cognitive component of the same PB. The cohesion of the text is achieved through anaphora of discourse presuppositions and text antonym pairs. Let's discover the antonymic language means in the given excerpt that operate as textual staples. The text instantiates that the antonyms pairs are often quite remote from each other and spread all over the microtext space, thus securing anaphora and cohesion of its parts as in the following pairs: правдивый в отношении к себе самому - обманывать себя; не мог раскаиваться -раскаивался; тридцатичетырехлетний - бывшую только годом моложе; красивый, влюбчивый человек - истощенная, состарившаяся, уже некрасивая женщина. The items in question, as it were, are not obvious antonyms but rather semantic / ideographic, that is, their antonyms status is deciphered by the context. Notwithstanding their non-explicit antonym nature, their common semantic feature and the distinctive semantic feature are undeniable due to which in fact the antonym pair is constructed.
The example quoted heretofore instantiates that text cohesion via an-tonymy is stipulated by the communicative intent of the addresser whose
account has allowed the introduction of some author-intent-pertinent frame and stereotype (betrayal) presuppositions into the discourse.
As mentioned earlier, text cohesion via antonymy can be realized syntactically as well, thus structuring parallel syntactic constructions. Such cases are prominent for antonymy of both nominal and verbal parts. In this perspective consider the following example.
А вы свое сделайте. Бог милостив, богу молитесь, сударь, богу молитесь [28].
The excerpt quoted above contains parallel opposition of the whole syntactic construction, that is, third person (Бог милостив) to second person (богу молитесь) which is also reflected in corresponding verb forms.
Such a symmetric opposition of predicative bases excludes all other syntactic relations but contrastive.
Conclusion
Overall, antonymy or semantic opposition is one of the principal ways of actualization of the mental content, that is, the PB of the speaking individual. The logic of a person who is undergoing world cognition processes lets him / her choose such strategy that allows observing contrastive, different aspects in identical mental entities. The importance of such a strategy substantistes the pivotal role of antonym cohesion in the organization of the mental structures of the speaking individual, that is, the PB, and their linguistic actualization in the text.
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Resived 02.05.2017
Information about the author:
Tovmasyan Hranush - Ph.D., Associate Professor in the Department of Linguistics and
Theory of Communication of Yerevan Brusov State University of Languages and Social Sciences (Yerevan, Armenia). E-mail: [email protected]
