https://doi.org/10.53656/for22.501anto

Резюме. This paper dwells on maritime terminology and the relationships defining “oppositeness of meaning” in it. It briefly retraces some theoretical assumptions in the sphere of antonymy and offers a classification of antonyms from a morphological and semantic point of view. The examples given are excerpted from documented materials standardized and consistent within the area of shipping and discussed and systematized using the lexico-semantic method. The findings in this study can be applicable when teaching English maritime terminology.

Ключови думи: Maritime English; terminological antonyms; features; types; teaching implications

Introduction

The process of building up the Maritime English terminological system is ongoing, ensuring a common language for officers and specialists working in the shipping business. The system has been investigated in detail, however, there are still areas which deserve further probing from a linguistic point of view both abroad and in Bulgaria. One of them is terminological antonymy.

The aim of this paper is to address problems related to antonyms in terminology in the maritime domain in English and Bulgarian. It briefly reviews theoretical assumptions in the sphere of antonymy and offers a classification of antonyms from a morphological and semantic point of view. The examples discussed are excerpted from documented materials standardized and consistent within the area – both dictionaries and coursebooks. The topic is worth discussing in order to meet our syllabus goals and needs of learners who are going to function in a multinational environment and be faced with varieties of English as the primary language for international communication.

What is antonymy?

Antonymy is viewed as an acceptable phenomenon in terminology. This stems from the fact that “binary opposition is one of the most important principles governing the structure of languages and the most evident manifestation of this principle is antonymy” (Lyons 1977, 271). Scholars define it as the relation among words in which the meanings of one term contrast, oppose or contradict the other term (Bolinger & Sears 1981; Cruse 1976; Lyons 1977). Yet, there is a disagreement on what exactly is covered by antonymy and how antonyms should be regarded.

Danilenko notes that antonyms are indeed more typical of the vocabulary of scientific language than the literary language (Danilenko 1977, 78). Sometimes it is clear to distinguish this oppositeness, sometimes it requires specialist knowledge to be established. For instance, solid and wet are opposites when referring to bulk cargo – насипен and наливен товар. Likewise a green side light is the opposite of a red side light → зелена vs червена бордова светлина denоting starboard or port side of a ship. Therefore, we posit yet another characteristic feature – that oppositeness should be defined in terms of logical incompatibility, that is, if a thing can be described by one of the members of an antonym pair, it is impossible for it to be described by the other (Jones et al 2012, 3).

Features of Antonyms

1. According to Arnold antonyms may be defined as two or more words of the same language belonging to the same part of speech and to the same semantic field, identical in style, (1986, 209) with the same grammatical meaning and functions, as well as similar collocations so that their denotative meanings render contradictory or contrary notions, e.g. seller – buyer → продавач – купувач; departure – arrival → отплаване – пристигане.

2. They denote phenomena, qualities, properties, and processes viewed from opposite perspectives, e.g. properties serve to indicate size, existence, speed, brightness, strength, width, etc. Here is a set of antonyms of light when referring to wind force:

3. As antonyms do not differ stylistically, an antonymic substitution never leads to a change of stylistic colouring. This is appropriate for terms.

4. Antonyms tend to co-occur in sentences or in particular contrastive constructions, an observation made by Murphy (2006, 2), which does not necessarily hold true for nautical texts, e.g. from stem to stern – от носа до кърмата, from ahead to astern – от ход напред до заден ход. Sometimes such a contrastive phrase in English is not rendered in a similar way in Bulgarian, e.g. fore-and-aft – по цялата дължина на кораба.

Almost every word can have one or more synonyms. Comparatively few have antonyms. Still fewer can have more than one antonym. There may be concepts without counterparts when they represent a generic concept of class or construction, e.g. navigating bridge (control station on board a ship) – мостик and cab (front part of a truck or crane, in which the driver sits) – кабина. This is only natural because the position they denote on each of the means of transport cannot be contrasted or opposed to another such location. In some cases when a piece of equipment or system, or method combines features of two opposites, it also becomes distinctively one of a kind, e.g. roll on-roll off (Ro-Ro) – технология за хоризонтално обработване на товари, etc.

In a broad sense a concept may have different antonyms depending on criteria of classification (place, direction, manner), e.g. veering and backing should be considered antonyms when it comes to denoting a wind changing direction clockwise or anticlockwise – вятър, духащ в посока на часовниковата стрелка или обратно на часовниковата стрелка. The problem of which of its senses is realized may be solved by both linguistic and extralinguistic means.

Here are some other instances of such pairs of antonyms:

green waters (the area covering continental shelves, archipelagoes and islands up to thousand miles from shore) – blue waters (the open sea) → крайморски vs морски води;

fixed light (a continuous and steady light of the same colour) – alternating light (a light showing different colours in succession) → постоянна vs променлива светлина.

The next set of phrases represents a group of three antonyms depending on the duration of the periods of light and dark. Thus in a flashing light (пробляскваща светлина) the period of light is shorter than the period of darkness. In an occulting light (затъмняваща светлина) the period of light is longer than the period of darkness while an isophase light (изофазна светлина) is a light which has dark and light periods of equal length.

Judging from the examples above antonyms can also be viewed as a binary taxonomy (Leech 1974, 109) as in embark – disembark → качвам се на борда – слизам на сушата, palletize – depalletize → палетизирам – разпалетизирам, or multiple taxonomy which is extended to three or more terms, e.g. the four cardinal points – north, east, south, west. According to Lyons and Cruse the traditional notion of antonymy is inadequate because of the variety of distinctions which exist in the area of lexical opposites, e.g. direction, place, consequence, etc. relations common in maritime terminology, as well (as cited by Lipka 1992, 148).

Types of Antonyms in Maritime Terminology

One of the classifications of antonyms offered by Komissarov in his Dictionary of Modern English Antonyms is based on a morphological principle (Komissarov 1964). According to it antonyms may be subdivided into absolute (root) and derivational. Absolute antonyms have different roots, e.g. private (carrier) – common (carrier) → частен превозвач – обществен превозвач; leeside – weather side → подветрена страна – наветрена страна; constant – variable → постоянна – променлива (величина).

Derivational antonyms have the same roots but different derivational affixes which impart a negative meaning to words. These may be formed by negative prefixes such as un-, im-, in- il-, ir- (added to adjectives), non-, mis-, dis-, de-, un(added to adjectives, verbs and nouns), e.g.

dis-: assemble – disassemble → сглобявам – разглобявам; regard – disregard → зачитане – незачитане; used – disused → употребяван – излязъл от употреба;

un-: stuff – unstuff → товаря (контейнери) – разтоварвам (контейнери); loading – unloading → товарене – разтоварване; attended – unattended → обслужван – необслужван;

de-: attach – detach → прикрепям – отделям, van – devan → пълня (контейнери) – разтоварвам (контейнери);

non-: delivery – non-delivery → доставяне – недоставяне; negotiable – nonnegotiable (document) → ценен (документ), който може да се преотстъпи – (документ) който не може да се преотстъпи; standard – non-standard → стандартен – нестандартен; compliance – non-compliance → съответствие – несъответствие.

In Bulgarian these antonyms are rendered with similar prefixes: раз-, не-, де-. Other typical prefixes such as anti- (cyclone – anticyclone → циклон – антициклон) and counter- (clockwise – counter-clockwise → по часовниковата стрелка – обратно на часовниковата стрелка) are rare in maritime terminology and translated descriptively in Bulgarian. The suffix -free on the other hand appears as the negative prefix без- in Bulgarian: trouble-free – безотказен, безавариен, duty-free – безмитен or as a preposition без as in nail-free – дънидж без гвоздеи.

Sometimes opposites are formed by means of antonymous suffixes: -ful and -less (careful – careless). More often -less does not necessarily oppose -ful, rather it just changes nouns into adjectives and signifies ‘lack of’ as in gearless – необорудван; wireless communications – безжични комуникации. In Bulgarian, however, the adjectival form is frequently rendered with a prepositional phrase, e.g. discountless – без отстъпка, stockless anchor – котва без щок. Still, when discussing and teaching negative derivation it should be duly noted that delimit is not the opposite of limit and flammable is not an antonym of inflammable.

The semantic classification of antonyms we are going to discuss here takes into account the criteria emphasized by Lyons – complementarity, converseness, directionality and gradability (Lyons 1977, 279) and divides them into:

a. Complementary (contradictory) antonyms. They are pairs of words in which one member has a certain semantic property that the other member does not have (cf. Lyons 1977, 279). Complementaries must denote absolute states or properties, i.e. they are mutually exclusive, cannot be graded and no middle ground is allowed for. According to Cruse “The essence of a pair of complementaries is that between them they exhaustively divide some conceptual domain into two mutually exclusive compartments, so that what does not fall into one of the compartments must necessarily fall into the other” (Cruse 1986, 198), e.g. deepsea shipping – short-sea shipping → морски превози на големи разстояния – морски превози на кратки разстояния; front leading mark – rear leading mark → преден створен знак – заден створен знак. The opposites given are expressed with contradictory adjectives or attributive modifiers, however, adverbs, nouns and verbs may also be used to denote opposition in acts, states or properties. It should be highlighted that most of the derivational antonyms also belong to this class: assemblе – disassemblе → комплектовам – разкомплектовам; ashore – offshore → на брега – на известно разстояние от брега, etc.

b. Contrary (gradable or scalar) antonyms differ from contradictories in that they denote mainly a degree in a property or activity. They allow for some intermediate members which are also antonymic compared to a certain criterion. Zapata states that gradable antonyms are pairs of words that are contrasted with respect to their degree of possession of a certain semantic property (Zapata 2000). Each term represents or stands for an end-point (or extreme) on a scale (e.g. of temperature, size, height, length, etc.) with some other intermediate points in-between (i.e., there is some middle ground) (cf. Lyons 1977; Pernishka & Vasileva 1997). These can be illustrated with above-water – awash – below-water →надводен – заливан от вода – подводен; before the beam – on the beam = abeam – abaft the beam → пред траверза – на траверз – зад траверза.

Adjectives are most common for this type of antonyms when they can be graded along specific dimensions of variation, e.g. (in temperature) cold – chilled – lukewarm – warm – hot where the intermediate terms: chilled, lukewarm and warm are asymmetric to hot. Similarly, past participles can be employed to denote a degree as in refrigerated cargoes which are temperature-controlled and may be frozen solid – chilled – cooled → дълбоко замразени – замразени – охладени respectively.

c. Converse (vector) antonyms denote “a relationship between two entities by specifying the direction of one relative to the other along some axis” (Cruse 1986, 231). Therefore this class of antonyms is mainly related to direction and movement, which are predominant in shipping, e.g. inbound vessel – outbound vessel → влизащ в пристанище кораб – излизащ от пристанище кораб; ingoing stream – outgoing stream → входящо течение – изходящо течение; hogging stress – sagging stress → напрежение при огъване на корпуса нагоре – напрежение при огъване на корпуса надолу.

There may be cases when antonyms like these cannot be interpreted correctly if the activity and direction is not specified, if so it should be explicated in context.

The fact that learners are aware of this type of relationship does not help them to identify and express overtly the meaning of such pairs in Bulgarian, e.g. backshore – foreshore → задна част на плажа – променлив брегови пояс, where the former is that part of the seashore between the foreshore and the coastline covered by water only during severe storms while the latter is the part of a seashore between high-water and low-water marks that is always covered by water.

d. Relational (reverse) antonyms mean one and the same referent or situation as viewed from different points of view, with a reversal of the order of participants and their roles (Palmer 1982, 94 – 100). Therefore, the existence of one of the terms implies the existence of the other term. Very often they are mistaken with converse antonyms. Thus there will be pairs which represent two opposed perspectives on a relationship or transfer of cargo in the transport chain such as consignor – consignee → изпращач – получател, exporter – importer → износител – вносител, origin – destination → произход – местоназначение, lessor – lessee → наемодател – наемател depending on what is subject to lease. According to Lyons many opposites of this type especially nouns involve social roles (Lyons 1977, 279 – 280). Others (such as verbs and adjectives) signify an act or state that reverse or undo the quality, act, or state of the other, e.g. buy – sell → купувам – продавам; lash – unlash → увързвам – развързвам; stayed – un-stayed → подвижен – неподвижен, moor – unmoor → швартовам се, т.е. заставам на вързала – снемам се от вързала, etc.

Antonyms as Parts of Speech

▪ Antonyms in English maritime terminology belong to the following parts of speech: nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs:

▪ Nouns – on-hire – off-hire → под наем – изтичане срока на наема; conformity – non-conformity → съответствие – несъответствие; inlet – outlet → вход – изход; loading – discharging → товарене – разтоварване;

▪ Verbs – mount – dismount → монтирам – демонтирам; wet – dry → мокря – изсушавам; stuff – strip → товаря (контейнери) – разтоварвам (контейнери); load – off-load → товаря – разтоварвам (частично); make fast – break loose → швартовам се – откъсвам се от вързала (за кораб);

▪ Adverbs – offshore – onshore → на известно разстояние от брега – на брега; inshore – inland → в близост до брега – на сушата; afloat – aground → на вода – заседнал;

▪ Adjectives – inbound – outbound → влизащ в пристанище – излизащ от пристанище (кораб); athwartship – fore-and-aft → напречен – надлъжен; compatible – incompatible → съвместим – несъвместим (товар).

Often adjectives are viewed as antonyms only in phrases, e.g. clean bill of lading – чист (без забележки) коносамент → foul bill of lading – коносамент със забележки where clean and foul are opposites; fixed and floating marks → стационарни и плаващи обекти; end-rolling hatchcovers – side-rolling hatchcovers → люково закритие с надлъжно отваряне – люково закритие, отварящо се към борда.

Noun compounds and phrases can also enter in antonym relations:

▪ Adj + N – clear anchor – foul anchor → чиста котва – нечиста, оплетена котва; general average – particular average → обща авария – частна авария;

▪ V-ing + N – aggravating circumstances – extenuating circumstances → утежняващи вината обстоятелства – смекчаващи вината обстоятелства; rising tide – falling tide → период между ниската и следващата висока вода – период между високата и следващата ниска вода;

▪ PP + N – short-shipped cargo – short-landed cargo – over-shipped cargo → ненатоварен товар – неразтоварен товар – натоварен в повече товар;

▪ N + N – liner shipping – tramp shipping → линейно плаване – трампово плаване; stern mooring – head mooring → носови въжета – кърмови въжета;

▪ Adj + N + N – cardinal buoyage system – lateral buoyage system → кардинална система на ограждане с буйове – латерална система на ограждане с буйове; strategic traffic information – tactical traffic information → стратегическа информация за всички кораби в по-широк район, предвиждаща бъдещи маневри и движения – тактическа информация за всички кораби в близкия район;

▪ Num + N + N – single-trip pallet – multi-trip pallet → палет за еднократна употреба – палет за многократна употреба; single-hull tanker – doublehull tanker → танкер с единичен корпус – танкер с двоен корпус;

▪ Adv + Adj + N – fully laden condition – partly laden condition → (плаващ) напълно натоварен – (плаващ) частично натоварен.

There are whole set phrases which can be used as opposites, too, e.g. Roll on – roll off – технология за хоризонтално обработване на товари; lift on – lift off – технология за вертикално обработване на товари; walk on – walk off – товарене и разтоварване на животни.

Conclusions

The findings in this paper prove that there are still areas worth further research in maritime terminology. Besides, since it is a widely-acknowledged fact that new words are not learned mechanically, but associatively (Morgan & Rinvolucri 2004, 7), they may serve as the basis for presenting new vocabulary in teaching. An effective verbal technique to introduce new words and ask students to elicit the meaning is by using synonyms, antonyms, collocations. This can be expanded by developing exercises on sense-relations, for example simple matching activities which may be complicated by incorporating analogy and asking students to explain how terms are related. Thus, learners will enhance their specialist knowledge as well as improve their critical thinking skills which are not just part of the classroom language learning but also an element of the lifelong learning process (Velikova et al. 2006, 347 – 354).

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