Negation and Double-Negation of Chinese Oppositeness - Springer Link

Negation and Double-Negation of Chinese Oppositeness Jing Ding and Chu-Ren Huang Chinese & Bilingual Studies, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kom, Kowloon, Hong Kong [email protected] [email protected]

Abstract. Oppositeness refers to the paradigmatic relationship of two words holding the contrast meanings. The fact that linguistic opposite differs from logical contrast has been discussed in theories, but has not been tested in practice. In this paper, we investigate three main subtypes of Chinese oppositeness, via using logical tests of negation and double-negation. Result shows that purely logical test does not always work on oppositeness, and indicates that contrast relations within different pairs also vary. Keywords: oppositeness, negation, double-negation.

1

Introduction

As one of the fundamental paradigmatic sense relations, oppositeness is very common in everyday language use, and has been discussed in numerous semantic literatures. However it is easy to notice that the opposite relationships in language is different from the ones of logical contrast pairs: entailments such as negation work well for the later but might not be applicable to the former in cases like happy: angry, or buy: sell. But for opposite pairs like dead: alive, the logical entailments seem to be applicable. Hence, it is possible to guess that the different subtype opposites actually hold different kinds of contrastive relationships, which may at least be partly revealed by negation and double-negation from the aspect of logical tests. The rest part of this paper is organized as following: Part Two is a literature review on how oppositeness is determined in general and how it is categorized into several subtypes in both English and Chinese; Part Three tests the negation and doublenegation of some typical subtypes of Chinese oppositeness; Part Four describes the results and analyses the reason of their different performance in the tests; Part Five summaries the work of this paper and suggests future work.

2

Oppositeness in General and Its Main Varieties

2.1

Oppositensss in General

Oppositeness, sometimes also known as antonymy, is defined as the two members of a lexical pair holding the contrast meanings. After traditional categorization [7], the D.H. Ji and G.Z. Xiao (Eds.): CLSW 2012, LNAI 7717, pp. 736–744, 2013. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2013

Negation and Double-Negation of Chinese Oppositeness

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term antonymy is restricted to only the meaning contrasting pairs which does not exclusively dichotomy the domain, or, more precisely, the pair of "gradable, directionally opposed" ones [4]. And at the same time, oppositeness (roughly equal to opposition) is selected as the most general term in his and others' later work (for example, [2]). A natural way of finding the opposite is by asking the question: "What is the opposite of ...?" On the other hand, linguists with a more radical point might assert that any word pairs having the meaning difference(s) would be theoretically possible to be opposites. However, we adopt the view that the words "appear paradoxical" [2] would be called opposites in general. Lyons [7] leaves an open answer to the wondering whether it is a universal human tendency to have the experience dichotomize or polarize in a two-word-pair. But it is very often to have the opposite relation holding between only two members, and any more-than-two clusters would be felt less canonity, such as black: white: grey. Hence, in this paper, we inherently focus on the two-word-pairs. 2.2

Main Varieties of Oppositeness

Any native speaker of English will naturally feel that the way of how dead contrasts to alive is not the same as the one of buy and sell, up and down, wife and husband, and so on. Naturally, under the general definition there are many different subtypes of oppositeness. Lyons and Cruse agree that for the basic distinction within oppositeness is whether they are gradable and ungradable. The ungradable opposites are termed as "complementaries" [2, 6], or "binary antonyms"[1], while the gradable ones are called antonyms [2, 7]. For the rest opposites, Lyons [7] defines converse as these pairs like buy: sell, husband: wife and directional opposite for come: go, up: down, respectively. Cruse [2, 3] defines converse as a relational opposite to "express a relationship between two entities by specifying the direction of another along some axis", among other relational opposites. Lyons' categorization [7] for opposition stops at the relatively early stage, distinguishing only the types of contrast, complementary, antonymy and converse. Cruse [2] further extends the distinction to several sub-subtypes, such as restitutive, interactive, satisfactive, counteractive as the subtypes of complementary, and so on. Others' work, may not strictly follow their definitions, almost all agree on the main subtypes of complementary, antonymy and converse (for example, [1, 8, 9]). 2.3

Chinese Oppositions

As to the studies of Chinese opposites, Liu [10] points out that there are three subtypes of opposite pairs: complementary, such as dead: alive; converse, such as buy: sell; and, directional opposition, such as up: down. Later, Liu and Zhou [11] add polar oppositeness, such as cold: hot, as one subtype of Chinese opposites. The definitions for both complementary and converse in their work are the same as these of English; while pairs of up: down and cold: hot are examples of antonyms in traditional categorizations.

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From the above, we may see that there are various kinds of oppositeness in natural language. For this paper, we select three most clearly defined subtypes, that is, complementary, antonym (or gradable opposite) and converse, to be examined in the later tests.

3

Negation and Oppositeness

3.1

Negation in Classical Logics

In Classic Logics, for a certain domainα, for the pair of A and B, if:

A=B, B= A and, A ∪ B = U , A ∩ B = φ then: 1) the negation of A goes to B, and the negation of B goes to A; 2) the double-negation of A goes back to A, and the double-negation of B goes back to B. In this paper, the first statement is called the negation of A or B, and the second one is called the double-negation of A or B. 3.2

Negation in Language Using

The question on whether opposition in language functions the same as the logical opposition has raised a long time discussion (for example, [2, 7, 8]). In Classic Logics, for the contradictory pair of A and B, the negation of A goes to its opposite point and the double-negation of A goes back to A directly. Furthermore, Aristotle distinct contrary from contradictory in logics: "the negation of one predication entails its contradictory", like true: false, red: not red; at the same time, "the assertion of one predicate entails the denial of its contrary, but in which both contraries may be false", like red: green, big: small [5]. As Lyons [7] correctly points out, “[t]he distinction of contradictories and contraries corresponds to the distinction of ungradable and gradable lexemes within the class of opposites in a language, but it applies more widely; and the fact that gradable antonyms can generally be taken as contraries, rather than contradictories, is a consequence of gradability, not its cause.” The relations between the opposite pair members are similar to logical negation but not necessarily follow the logical negation and double-negation rules. Hence, the negation and double-negation tests, which are used for logical contradictories, only work on the case of complementary pairs in language opposition.

4

Negation and Double-Negation Tests

The approach adopted here is to the negation and double-negation to test three subtypes of oppositeness, in order to compare their behavior in natural language


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using. The selected examples of the subtypes are the most cited ones in previous studies. And, to avoid the possible ambiguity caused by syntactic structures, we use the most direct and simple way of having negation and double-negation, that is, to have the negation sentences translated with negator of NOT and double-negation with NOT NOT. Now let’s see how the purely logic assumption works for Chinese pair members of complementary, antonym and converse relations. 4.1

Negation Tests

死：活

a). (complementary) (si 3: huo 2, dead: alive) So for each member of the pair, we can have statements like: And, Xiao-ming si le Xiao-ming huo zhe Xiao-ming dead LE Xiao-ming alive ZHE Xiao-ming (is) dead. Xiao-ming (is) alive. For them, the negations are:

小明死了。

小明没有死。

小明活着。

＝小明还活着。

Xiao-ming mei you si Xiao-ming hai huo zhe Xiao-ming not dead Xiao-ming still alive ZHE Xiao-ming (is) not dead. Xiao-ming (is) still alive.

小明没有活下来。

＝小明死了。

Xiao-ming mei you huo xia lai Xiao-ming si le Xiao-ming not alive down Xiao-ming dead LE Xiao-ming (is) not alive. Xiao-ming (is) dead. For the pair of si: hou, the negation of one goes to the other of the pair. In other words, when Xiao-ming is dead is negated, and then it should mean that Xiao-ming is (still) alive. Meanwhile, the negation of Xiao-ming is alive only implies the one that Xiao-ming is dead. However, in real language using, it is also natural to have the phrases like ban-si-bu-huo (half-dead-half-alive), which means still alive but exhaust of energy. The negation of huo in this phrase does not have the equal meaning of si, because in such case the complementary opposite of si: hou coerces to being gradable, which will be explained in section 4.3.

高兴：伤心她高兴。她伤心。

b). (antonym) (gao 1 xing 4: shang 1 xin1 , happy: sad) For statements like: And, ta gao xing ta shang xin she happy she sad She is happy. She (is) sad.

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We will have their negated statements like:

她不高兴。＝？她伤心。

＝她平静。

她不伤心。＝她高兴。

她平静。

Or, ? ta bu gao xing ta shang xin ta ping jing she not happy she sad she quiet She (is) not happy. She (is) sad. She (is) quite. Or, = ? ta bu shang xin ta gao xing ta ping jing she not sad she happy she quiet She (is) not sad. = She (is) happy. She (is) quite. The negation of gao-xing could be understood in different ways, that it, there are more than one utterances implied from the negated sentences of She is not happy, and vice versa.

买：卖 (mai 3: mai 4, buy: sell) 张三买了一辆车。

c). (converse) For statement:

Zhang-san mai le yi liang che Zhang-san buy LE one liang (measure word) car Zhang-san brought a car. Its negated sentence is: ≠ Zhang-san mei you mai yi liang che Zhang-san mai le yi liang che Zhang-san not buy one liang car Zhang-san sell LE one Liang car Zhang-san did not buy a car. Zhang-san sold a car. Similarly, for statement of:

张三没有买一辆车。

张三卖了一辆车。

李四买了一辆车。

Li-si mai le yi liang che Li-si buy LE one liang car Li-si sold a car. Here comes its negative sentence: ≠ Li-si mei you mai yi liang che Li-si mai le yi liang che Li-si not buy one liang car Li-si sell LE one liang car Li-si did not buy a car. Li-si sold a car.

李四没有买一辆车。

李四卖了一辆车。

Similarly with the pair of gao-xing: shang-xin, the negation of the member of this pair does not have only one understanding. So, again, the negation test fails in the pair of mai: mai.


4.2

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Double-Negation Tests

死：活小明不是没有死。

(si 3: huo 2, dead: alive) a). (complementary) For the above original sentences, their double-negated sentences are:

小明死了。

Xiao-ming bu shi mei you si Xiao-ming not not dead Xiao-ming is not not dead.

Xiao-ming si LE Xiao-ming dead LE Xiao-ming is dead. = Xiao-ming bu shi mei you huo xia lai Xiao-ming huo xia lai LE Xiao-ming not not alive down Xiao-ming alive down Xiao-ming is not not alive. Xiao-ming is alive.

小明不是没有活下来。

小明活下来了。

The double-negations of both sentences go back to the original sentences, which means that the double-negation of the member equal to the meaning of the original members: NOT-NOT dead is the same to dead.

高兴：伤心她不是不高兴。＝她很平静。

而是很不高兴。

她高兴。

她不是不伤心。＝她很平静。

而是不很伤心。

她伤心。

b). (antonym) (gao 1 xing 4: shang 1 xin1 , happy: sad) Still, for the above sentence pairs, their double-negated sentences like: ? Or, =? Or, =? ta bu shi bu gao xing ta hen ping jing er shi hen bu gao xing ta gao xing she not not happy she very quiet but very unhappy she happy She is not not happy She is quite. But (she) is very unhappy She (is) happy. ? Or, =? Or, =? ta bu shi bu shang xin ta hen ping jing er shi bu hen shang xin ta shang xin she not not sad she very quiet but not very sad she sad She is not not sad She is quite. But (she) is not very sad She (is) sad. The double-negations to the pair member of gao-xing: shang-xin also has more than one meaning. Interesting we notice that, NOT-NOT happy can both mean being happy, or being very unhappy; on the other hand, NOT-NOT sad prefers to be read as being sad or being not very sad.

买：卖张三不是没有买一辆车。

c). (converse) (mai 3: mai 4, buy: sell) As above, we have the double-negation for the original statements like:

张三买了一辆车。

Zhang-san bu shi mei you mai yi liang che Zhang-san mai le yi liang che Zhang-san not not buy one liang car Zhang-san buy LE one liang car Zhang-san did not not buy a car. Zhang-san brought a car. = Li-si bu shi mei you mai yi liang che Li-si mai LE yi liang che

李四不是没有卖一辆车。

李四卖了一辆车。

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LI-si not not sell one liang car Li-si did not not sell a car.

Li-si sell LE one liang car Li-si sold a car.

When we double negate buy of this pair, the only possible reading is still buy, and the same for sell. 4.3

Binary and Negation

The negation and double-negation tests success on the complementary and converse pairs and, at the same time, fail to work on gradable antonym pairs such as happy: sad. The reason lies on the binarity of opposite pairs. For some subtype of opposition, like complementary, the two members of the pair dichotomize the related domain; while some others , like the gradable antonym, the domain contains more than two members which may said to be held meaning contrasts, along certain scale or dimension. That is to say, for a normal circumstance, someone that is not alive should be dead, but the utterance of someone is not happy is not equal to that of someone is sad. So in the later example, other kinds of emotions can be used instead of being sad to contrast with being happy, or, equal to being not happy. Even for the complementary pairs, it is necessary to identify the related domain this pair is applied to, in order to have the negation and double-negation rules work. A table or a chair, for example, is not applicable for the pair of die: alive. (cf. e.g., [7]) Also, in natural language using, it is not rare to have the complementary pairs, very often is one member of the pair, coerced into being gradable. Again, let’s take die: alive for example. Cruse [2] concludes that some complementary adjectives are not normally gradable, but points out that very often one member of a pair is more likely to be grading than the other, like: ?very dead, ?moderately dead, ?deader than before; but, very alive, moderately alive, more alive than before [2]. And, Murphy [9] agrees that "complementaries can sometimes be used as contraries, and contraries sometimes are used as complementaries", even for some gradable pairs, "denial of one is usually taken to be the assertion of the other" [9], like Ari is not honest normally entails Ari is dishonest, and vice versa. Actually, according to Cruse [2], he "solves this problem by maintaining that such words must have two senses, one in complementary opposition and the other in contrary opposition to its antonym." (cf. [2, 9]) Pairs like buy: sell offers another aspect of looking at the binarity of being an opposite pair. In the normal trading domain, there are, usually, only the contrast of buying and selling. Their meanings are converse because: for any X buys Y from Z, then it is true that, Z sells Y to X. However, the two-member-relation is not necessary enough to generate the implication like complementary pairs in the negation and double-negation tests. That is because, logically speaking, if X is not buying Y, then it is not to say X is selling Y---- it is also even possible for X to do nothing with Y. The two-member-relation between buy and sell is coinciding with the human tendency to


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to categorize experience in terms of binary contrasts, as linguists (see, e.g., [1, 7, 9]) pointed out. 4.4

Summary

As we have seen above, the negations of complementary members si 3(die) and huo 2 (alive) assert the other one of pair, and the double-negations of each imply the assertions of themselves; for the antonym pair of gao 1 xing 4 (happy) and shang 1 xin 1(sad), the negation of does not necessary imply, and vice verse, and the doublenegation of either equal to; in the case of mai 3(buy): mai 4(sell), which combine a converse pair, the negation of is not always, but the double-negation of still means, and vice versa. The results can be generalized in the table below: Table 1. Negation and double-negation results of three subtypes of opposition

negation double-negation complementary goes to its opposite goes back to itself antonym not necessarily go to its opposite not necessarily go back to itself converse not necessarily go to its opposite goes back to itself Hence in natural languages, like Chinese, a purely logical negation or doublenegation test it fails to work in many cases. For example, the utterance of “the house is big” negates that of “the house is small”, while the one of “the house is not big” does not necessarily imply that “the house is small”. Also, the negation of “prefect” could be “flawed”, but the negation of “flawed” is probably “flawless”, rather than “prefect”. The emotion words may be more impressing examples. When saying someone is “not happy” or “unhappy”, the speaker either implies the possibility of being in other emotional states. But for complementary pairs, the domain where they apply to is divided into two parts which combine the whole domain but mutually exclusive, so the negation of one member always goes to the other and doublenegation goes back.

5

Conclusion

In this paper, we adopt logical negation and double-negation tests to compare the behaviors of three main subtypes of Chinese oppositeness. The test result indicates that: the three types of oppositeness are different in the way their pair members contrast each other; for a complementary pair, both the negation and doublenegation go to the supposed members of the pair; for an antonym pair, neither bidirectional-negation nor double-negation goes to the supposed members of the pair, for a converse pair, the negation of each member of the pair does not always go to the other, but the double-negation of them goes back to themselves. Our test reveals that

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the contrast relations holding between different subtypes of opposites are different from each other, at least in the logic negation and double-negation entailments. However, this paper only employs several most often cited opposite pairs for the tests. Therefore, in future work we should extend the tests to opposite pairs in a larger scale, with the help of online corpora, to re-examine the results of the paper. Also, the comparative studies of opposite negation tests between different natural languages, such as Chinese and English, are supposed to be useful. Acknowledgments. The work is supported by a General Research Fund (GRF) sponsored by the Research Grants Council (Project no. 544011). The authors would like to thank the anonymous reviewers for their useful comments on earlier drafts of this paper.

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