Challenge: "Find a word without an antonym"

[SkyWalker]

Challenge: "Find a word without an antonym"


My theory = "There exists no word which has no opposite word"

(e.g. words/thoughts/concepts in our mind can exist as opposites only)

Try to disprove it?

 

[pjoa09]

post? post as in posting?

Log

Write


ye?

I can't think how you can find a proper antonym for them.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

What are the criteria for something to be an antonym?

 

[SkyWalker]

I can't think how you can find a proper antonym for them.

These are easy:
-posting vs removing
-logging vs forgetting
-writing vs reading

More difficult ones please?

 

[SkyWalker]

What are the criteria for something to be an antonym?

Dictionary definition of antonym:

A word which has the opposite meaning to another, although not necessarily in all its senses.
"rich" is an antonym of "poor"; "full" is an antonym of "empty"

 

[Chimera]

Most proper nouns have no opposites, methinks.

​

 

[SkyWalker]

Most proper nouns have no opposites, methinks.

You are right about that. They are actually labels for objects (instances of objects) or categories (classes of objects) right?
They are actually just random unique labels? Thus have no opposite?

- Proper nouns: names/labels/titles that begin with upper case letter, like "SkyWalker" or "New York"
- Common nouns:
- Countable common nouns: chair, nose (2 chairs, 3 noses)
- Uncountable common nouns: furniture, cutlery

Are these the only ones that do not have antonyms?

 

[ApostateAbe]

OK, what is the antonym for "celery"?

"Antimatter."

Shoot, I lose.

 

[dala]

Might be more accurate to say that no concept exists that has no antonym. I don't think this is because our brains are unable to think of things that have no opposites, but because there is no need to (such a thing would be meaningless). For instance, if there was no light, then there would be no need for the word 'darkness.' because darkness would be the default, unnoticed state of things.

 

[dark]

a

 

[EyeSeeCold]

Any descriptive word automatically has a pre-existing opposite, because to define one thing is to define all others. What is and what is not. I am that which is not I. It is that and is not that. It is the nature of dichotomies. The rest is just specifics.

 

[SkyWalker]

a

a vs the
(=any vs particular)

OK, what is the antonym for "celery"?

"Antimatter."

Shoot, I lose.

celery is a random label/name/title/symbol for a class of objects (uncountable common noun), thus has no opposite

antimatter is a similar uncountable common noun, but because it begins with "anti-" it is of course easy to say: antimatter vs matter

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Does this property hold?

If a and b are antonyms
and b and c are antonyms
then a = c

If not, in what circumstances is it true?

Might be more accurate to say that no concept exists that has no antonym. I don't think this is because our brains are unable to think of things that have no opposites, but because there is no need to (such a thing would be meaningless). For instance, if there was no light, then there would be no need for the word 'darkness.' because darkness would be the default, unnoticed state of things.

So, for examples, the antonym of "dog" could be "everything in the world which is not a dog"?

Or, do we have to specify "all animals which are not dogs", or "all mammals which are not dogs", or "all canines which are not dogs", or "all pets which are not dogs", or "all pets which are either cats or dogs but are not dogs"?

Does an antonym assume that two concepts are identical -except- with respect to one factor, in which they represent different sides of a dichotomy?

 

[nanook]

it seems the opposition isn't always implied in the word. in language, context has live in it self. and context can impose a relationship of opposition on words, that isn't there in another context. so words only have the possibility of opposition/relationship, because they have the possibility of context? is it ever more than a possibility? is there ever a necessity for associating an opposite? i can't think of an example. black does not have to create an association with white. it's just a conditioned probability of associative pathways. of associating a context, which imposes this relationship. of course the psychological experience of black, with context/imposed realtionship, is different from the experience of black without context/imposed realtionship, because the latter lacks something. but they have a common base. the suchness of black. the consideration of context/relationship may distract you from the suchness, but it doesn't have to.

so you don't get far by classifying words, as if they hold all the keys. the grammar-paradigm (as i know it, which i don't *g*) might not live up to the nature of language.

 

[pjoa09]

The definition of antonym is being compromised already

The antonym for

forgetting is remembering not logging

I will give you reading and writing that one makes sense. But if you think hard it should be making history so someone else would write it and someone else would be reading it. Or at least telepathically putting it there.

removing is putting it depends on context.

What is the antonym of a neutron?

But all I am really doing is splitting hairs.

What is the antonym of rules?
can't be chaos that is a state.

 

[pjoa09]

Does this property hold?

If a and b are antonyms
and b and c are antonyms
then a = c

If not, in what circumstances is it true?

So, for examples, the antonym of "dog" could be "everything in the world which is not a dog"?

Or, do we have to specify "all animals which are not dogs", or "all mammals which are not dogs", or "all canines which are not dogs", or "all pets which are not dogs", or "all pets which are either cats or dogs but are not dogs"?

Does an antonym assume that two concepts are identical -except- with respect to one factor, in which they represent different sides of a dichotomy?

Nouns default to antimatter. And shit i think anti-neuron? Ended up answering my own little riddles.

I found another one.. touch. because you can't actually untouch something because if you say you aren't going to touch it then you are in the middle of the spectrum and what has happened has happened.

I am pretty sure time machine never existed because the world would've been better as it is now if it did and if it does exist in the future we only reached other dimensions and never have been able to change things in this dimension.

 

[SkyWalker]

The antonym for

forgetting is remembering not logging

Dictionary definition of antonym again:

A word which has the opposite meaning to another, although not necessarily in all its senses.

its not the word itself which is the thing ,it is the meaning in your brain which it is referring to. words can have different meanings in different contexts.

the antonym of remembering is forgetting, as in erasing the memory.
that does not say it cannot be an antonym for something else as well, with a slight twist on the meaning.
so the antonym of logging can also be forgetting, as in never recording it into the log.

 

[SkyWalker]

Does this property hold?

If a and b are antonyms
and b and c are antonyms
then a = c

it holds only if you say a,b and c are the underlying meanings of the word in its used context.

if you say a,b and c are just words, then it does not hold. because the context of b might be different in a vs b than in b vs c. (e.g. the b word can have 2 meanings)

 

[SkyWalker]

Nouns default to antimatter.

So the opposite of (proper & common) nouns is their anti-part, their not-part.
Like London vs not-London?

So even nouns have a meaning as opposites only: the object of the noun, or not the object of the noun

 

[SkyWalker]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Parts_of_speech#Functional_classification

 

[snafupants]

Might be more accurate to say that no concept exists that has no antonym. I don't think this is because our brains are unable to think of things that have no opposites, but because there is no need to (such a thing would be meaningless). For instance, if there was no light, then there would be no need for the word 'darkness.' because darkness would be the default, unnoticed state of things.

Above is the most intelligent post in this reductionist friendly thread so far. Our reality is predicated on language, to the point where being illiterate vastly circumsribes experienced reality, and with language experience has a chance of surviving and being presentable and understandable.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

it holds only if you say a,b and c are the underlying meanings of the word in its used context.

if you say a,b and c are just words, then it does not hold. because the context of b might be different in a vs b than in b vs c. (e.g. the b word can have 2 meanings)

So, given that a word can have a plethora of similarly but functionally distinct meanings, what is the relationship between a particular meaning and its antonym?

Does an antonym only exist where the meaning of the word implies the existence of an antonym? Can an antonym be regarded as an inverse? i.e. that if an object has a particular state, if you add the antonym of that state you are left with a neutral, identity state?

e.g.

-posting vs removing
-logging vs forgetting
-writing vs reading

Applying "post" then "remove" leaves us in the same state as if neither had been performed. Applying "log" then "forget" does too. Applying "write" then "read" does not because the words are still written down afterwards, and they have also been transferred to the reader. This is not an antonym.

Are black and white antonyms? How can you "apply black" then "apply white"? Well, by first making a colour more black-like, and then making it more white-like. If you do this in the correct proportion then you are back to where you started. However, you must be careful here - black paint and white paint are not antonyms with respect to coloured paint. They combine to give grey paint, which makes the colour it is added to more grey. However, they are antonyms with respect to grey paint, since grey paint is a linear combination of black and white.

So, as we can see, a word has an antonym if its meaning is a change which is capable of being reversed, with the antonym being the respective reversal.

Now we are in a position to answer this for this class of antonyms:

If a and b are antonyms
and b and c are antonyms
then a = c

We know that we must keep the meaning of b the same in each case. So, a and b are such that "do a" then "do b" is equivalent to "do nothing", and similarly for b and c. Putting this in equation form to shorten the sentences:
a + b = 0
b + c = 0

So a + b + c = a + (b + c) = a + 0 = a
and a + b + c = (a + b) + c = 0 + c = c

Thus a + b + c = a = c, Q.E.D.

(assuming associativity)

--

What other antonyms are there?

 

[dala]

Does this property hold?

If a and b are antonyms
and b and c are antonyms
then a = c

If not, in what circumstances is it true?

So, for examples, the antonym of "dog" could be "everything in the world which is not a dog"?

Or, do we have to specify "all animals which are not dogs", or "all mammals which are not dogs", or "all canines which are not dogs", or "all pets which are not dogs", or "all pets which are either cats or dogs but are not dogs"?

Does an antonym assume that two concepts are identical -except- with respect to one factor, in which they represent different sides of a dichotomy?

I would think that the antonym of any noun would be 'no <noun>' or 'not <noun>,' depending on context. I addressed concepts in particular, rather than all words, because a big chunk of language is nothing more than a placeholder for concrete objects.

However, take the concept of 'dog,' then consider that the concept of 'no dog' would never enter peoples' minds if dogs did not exist. That's because 'no dog' would be the default state of things, to the point where no one noticed. This is why all concepts have antonyms.

 

[SkyWalker]

. Applying "write" then "read" does not because the words are still written down afterwards, and they have also been transferred to the reader. This is not an antonym.

ok i'll fix it:

read vs block (e.g. receive vs block reception)
write vs erase (e.g. record/log vs erase)


as mentioned here:
a vs b is an antonym if do a + do b (or vice versa)=0
that is a VERY SMART DEFINITION! I BOW TO YOU!

take love vs hate. which is an antonym, because do love + do hate = 0

take love vs indifference, which is not an antonym, because do love + do indifference = NOT 0

(people-)indifference vs (people-)attentive is however an antonym. do indifference + do attentive = 0

love vs hate, is what splits attentive in 2: positive attention vs negative attention.

so love/hate is another split of the attentive side the indifference/attentive split.

many dimensions can be made by stacking opposites into each other. we do that all the time in our concepts.

 

[Hadoblado]

I don't really understand. Aren't antonyms an oversimplification denoting the mutually exclusive properties innate in two (or more according to the a =/= c theory) words?
So darkness and light are not opposites, they are just mutually exclusive. Darkness = not light and light = not not light, but these are oversimplified categorizations of a physically quantifiable phenomenon. Darkness is an abbreviation for zero light, and isn't actually a necessary word for effective communication of this.

 

[soupymess]

'Not [noun]' only asserts the opposition of existence/nonexistence and/or a thing/all other things. Antonymy should specify something more than existence/nonequivalence, or else it's redundant.

 

[Hadoblado]

'Not [noun]' only asserts the opposition of existence/nonexistence and/or a thing/all other things. Antonymy should specify something more than existence/nonequivalence, or else it's redundant.

Exactly.

 

[Anthrocide]

OK, what is the antonym for "celery"?

"Antimatter."

Shoot, I lose.

You made an INTJ laugh.

Challenge: "Find a word without an antonym"


My theory = "There exists no word which has no opposite word"

(e.g. words/thoughts/concepts in our mind can exist as opposites only)

Try to disprove it?

Spatial. If one believes space to be devoid of matter, then matter is the answer. If one believes space to be devoid of nothingness, then nothingness is the answer. Isn't this "challenge" perspective-based, and as such, devoid of objective criterion? I do not think this challenge is a challenge. The positive-negative axis is concocted (by human perception), so it can be rearranged. Your theory is naturally correct.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

I don't really understand. Aren't antonyms an oversimplification denoting the mutually exclusive properties innate in two (or more according to the a =/= c theory) words?
So darkness and light are not opposites, they are just mutually exclusive. Darkness = not light and light = not not light, but these are oversimplified categorizations of a physically quantifiable phenomenon. Darkness is an abbreviation for zero light, and isn't actually a necessary word for effective communication of this.

Sort of.

As I mentioned before, antonyms make sense in processes. Thus 'make darker' and 'make lighter' are antonyms, because if you do one then the other in the right proportions then you end up back where you started. Light and dark are antonyms with respect to this process. However 'add black paint' and 'add white paint' are not antonyms.

It is unclear whether we should allow for one sided antonyms, in the sense that the antonym only makes sense with respect to the original idea, e.g. a noun, and the simple annihilation of that noun.

With respect to all integers, + and - are antonyms, however, are they still antonyms with respect just to the positive integers? a + b always exists, but a - b doesn't.

Interesting to note: antonyms exist in pairs, but there could also be antonymic triplets, e.g. movements in a triangle. All pairs of antonyms form antonymic quadruplets, however there also exist other kinds of antonymic quadruplets. We can form a quadruplet from any pair of antonyms with the triple processes a+b+c, a-b-c, -a+b-c, -a-b+c.

 

[SkyWalker]

Interesting to note: antonyms exist in pairs, but there could also be antonymic triplets, e.g. movements in a triangle. All pairs of antonyms form antonymic quadruplets, however there also exist other kinds of antonymic quadruplets. We can form a quadruplet from any pair of antonyms with the triple processes a+b+c, a-b-c, -a+b-c, -a-b+c.

Can you explain this with more details? With elaborate examples?

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

Can you explain this with more details? With elaborate examples?

I don't know any useful examples, but you know how with an antonyms a and b, we have a + b = 0? Well, in antonymic triples, a + b + c = 0, but no pair of them does.

So as an example: while facing the same direction: move 1m on a bearing of 0', move 1m on a bearing of 120', move 1m on a bearing of 240', creates such a process, since if you follow this you are back to wear you started after having walked in an equilateral triangle. You can extend this to any arbitrary number of processes.

Perhaps love/hate/indifferent actually forms a triplet, rather than love and hate being antonyms?

 

[James Black]

Thank, as in the verb to thank. To express gratitude and/or appreciate.
I'm looking for a word that means to explicitly and purposefully express a strict lack of appreciation and gratitude.

 

[SkyWalker]

Thank, as in the verb to thank. To express gratitude and/or appreciate.
I'm looking for a word that means to explicitly and purposefully express a strict lack of appreciation and gratitude.

gratitude vs wastefulness

 

[SkyWalker]

I don't know any useful examples, but you know how with an antonyms a and b, we have a + b = 0? Well, in antonymic triples, a + b + c = 0, but no pair of them does.

So as an example: while facing the same direction: move 1m on a bearing of 0', move 1m on a bearing of 120', move 1m on a bearing of 240', creates such a process, since if you follow this you are back to wear you started after having walked in an equilateral triangle. You can extend this to any arbitrary number of processes.

Perhaps love/hate/indifferent actually forms a triplet, rather than love and hate being antonyms?

do you have any other examples of triplets? i dont know any?

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

do you have any other examples of triplets? i dont know any?

I'm not sure of any. I was just putting it there as a theoretical possibility. It might actually be the case that such triplets are simply 2 different antonyms put together, but with one dispersed among the other two.

e.g. love vs hate is positive emotion vs negative emotion + intensity of emotion
the triangle is formed from the antonyms of positive vs negative and greater vs lesser intensity

So yeah, I'm not sure of any or if the concept is at all useful.

 

[alrai]

When your not sure, its almost always an advantage to ask rather assume, a theoretical possibility may give you an edge on odd occasions, but the tone of implying it should be subtle, not combative.

 

[SkyWalker]

alrai > i've been talking to artsu for a while here, he is not combative. he's just trying to put something out. but its generally good advice to do things subtle. although everything has its flipside: if you do it too subtle then the INTPs put it down too easily

artsu > i know where you got it from, you have it from your 3x3 enneagram understanding.

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

alrai > i've been talking to artsu for a while here, he is not combative. he's just trying to put something out. but its generally good advice to do things subtle. although everything has its flipside: if you do it too subtle then the INTPs put it down too easily

artsu > i know where you got it from, you have it from your 3x3 enneagram understanding.

Well, it wasn't based on that, but I'm sure there are ties.

The ideas was simply that if we can represent concepts through a mathematical formula, e.g. a + b = 0 -> a and b are antonyms, then we should be able to use similar conceptualisations.

A problem with this notion of antonyms, is that we also have to specify the object that the processes are being performed on, e.g. black and white will only cancel when applied to grey, otherwise they cause a change.

And the only reason this works is because grey is a combination of black and white.

So are the only context free antonyms 'do X' and 'undo X'?

However: the imply a change in time, so this -does- suggest a context, i.e. some kind of changeability with respect to time.

Is there a difference between antonyms and mutually exclusive terms?

 

[SkyWalker]

Is there a difference between antonyms and mutually exclusive terms?

well if the mutually exclusive terms are on the same axis/dimension of the opposites, then: yes.

but not always: fork and mouse > mutually exclusive, but not opposites

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

well if the mutually exclusive terms are on the same axis/dimension of the opposites, then: yes.

How do we determine whether two things are on the same axis? Does this imply only one fundamental difference between the two things?

Suppose we have concepts represented by qualitative sets of properties A, B and X, as well as properties a and b.

A = X + a
B = X + b

If there is no concept C in the form X + c where c != pa + qb for some (positive/zero) p and q, and a != b, then A and B are antonyms (with respect to X).

If we instead used three concepts A, B and C, and suppose that no respective concept D exists, then we have an antonymic triplet.

e.g. if we assume that all colours can be formed by mixing the three primary colours, let's say red, blue and yellow.

We have (e.g. R means red, C means is a colour, r is the property of redness):
R = C + r
B = C + b
Y = C + y
X = C + kr + lb + my for an arbitrary colour X and (positive/zero) numbers k, l, m

To determine whether R, B and Y form an antonymic triplet, with respect to C, given our assumption, we suppose that there is some colour Z where
Z != C + kr + lb + my for (positive/zero) numbers k, l and m.
But by our assumptions, all colours can be represented in this way, so they must form an antonymic triplet.

Generalising: if we have a countable set such that any object which contains the properties of the intersection of this set, then if this is an antonymic set, the complement properties of this additional object must be a linear combination of the properties of elements of the set.

 

[hitode-kun]

You are right about that. They are actually labels for objects (instances of objects) or categories (classes of objects) right?
They are actually just random unique labels? Thus have no opposite?

Aren't all words, including "antonym", labels?

 

[Ever]

celery:not celery
quadratic equation:not a quadratic equation
hot:cold
neutron:not a neutron
blah blah let's find some real examples. but how?
whats the opposite of middle? average? moderate?Also there is nothing mathematically possible that can't be reduced by multiplying that thing by 0 so whats the opposite of *0

 

[Artsu Tharaz]

celery:not celery
quadratic equation:not a quadratic equation
hot:cold
neutron:not a neutron
blah blah let's find some real examples. but how?
whats the opposite of middle? average? moderate?Also there is nothing mathematically possible that can't be reduced by multiplying that thing by 0 so whats the opposite of *0

An antonym, then, must be one to one I take it?

If you take the average or multiply by zero, you have lost information, so you can't take the inverse.

 

[Anthile]

An antonym is a word that is the opposite of another word but there are two forms of it: first the binary antonym, which is defined by allowing only two possible states (light-shadow, man-woman, life-death) but also the gradable antonym (hot-cold, long-short, big-small).
There is really nothing special about this. Most nouns have no antonyms.

 

[SkyWalker]

whats the opposite of middle? average? moderate?Also there is nothing mathematically possible that can't be reduced by multiplying that thing by 0 so whats the opposite of *0

middle vs periphery/perimeter/circumference
average vs deviation
0/nothing/void vs all/infinity

 

[SkyWalker]

There is really nothing special about this.

The special thing to note is that there exists no thought/concept/meme in your mind that has no opposite.
Our mental existence is based on opposites

 

[soupymess]

It'd be interesting to see how test writers calibrate the difficulty of analogy/antonym questions.

 

[Dapper Dan]

I feel the need to point out that this whole discussion is somewhat naive. Naive in the sense that our language contains enough individual words to oppose every other individual word. In fact, I'm guessing it doesn't even come close, as evidenced by the fact that the word "not" exists and receives common use. "Not dog" is not an antonym because it is a phrase, not a word.

Also, "not" seems to be a pretty good candidate for an antonym-less word.

 

[Bird]

Main Entry: collar
Part of Speech: noun
Definition: neck attire
Synonyms: Eton, Vandyke, bertha, choker, dicky, fichu, fraise, frill, jabot, neckband, ruff, torque


voila.


Only as a noun does it not have antonyms.

Most body parts do not have antonyms.
Just a heads up (; I'm not going to
demonstrate it, but if you think about it
you'll realize this is a correct statement.
Feel free to investigate if you must.

 

[EditorOne]

Orange? The fruit. Oh, wait, that's the word for which there is no rhyme. Sorry.