Abstract

Natural language references different types of entities. Some of these entities (e.g. degrees, locations, times) are strictly ordered with respect to one another; others (e.g. individuals, possible worlds) are not. The empirical goal of this paper is to show that some linguistically encoded relations across these domains (e.g. under, slower than) display a polar asymmetry, while others do not. The theoretical goal of this paper is to argue that this asymmetry – and its restriction to only certain relations – is due to intrinsic properties of strictly ordered domains, coupled with a bias in how language users perceive these domains.

Keywords: natural language, antonymy, strictly ordered domains, formal semantics, distinct domains, distinct entities

How to Cite:

Rett, J., (2015) “Antonymy In Space And Other Strictly Ordered Domains”, Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication 1(2015). doi: https://doi.org/10.4148/1944-3676.1095