-ant, -ent
A number of
words have two forms: a noun form ending in -ant
and an adjective ending in -ent:
a dependant a
dependent child a pendant pendent clouds
a propellant propellent fuel
The following
nouns often cause spelling problems:
attendant/ce independent/ce relevant/ce superintendent transcendent/ce
See: spelling.
ante-, anti-
Ante- is a prefix meaning ‘before’:
Before her
child was born she attended an antenatal
clinic, and after the birth she received postnatal care.
Anti- is a prefix meaning ‘against’:
He manned an anti-aircraft gun during the war.
See: affix,
problem pairs.
antecedent
This term is used of a unit to
which a later unit refers. Thus, in the sentences:
The cat that
John found was very small. It was also very old.
‘the cat’ is the antecedent of
both ‘that’ and ‘it’.
The personal pronouns he, she, it, they and the relative pronouns always have
antecedents. Often, auxiliary verbs
have antecedents:
John loved cats. He really did.
See: anaphora, auxiliary, discourse analysis,
pro-forms, pronoun.
antithesis
Antithesis is the stylistic technique of
juxtaposing statements that are opposite or strongly contrastive in meaning.
Such statements often involve structural parallelism:
Marry in
haste; repent at leisure.
One small step
for man; one giant leap for mankind.
The force of the antithetical statement often depends on the semantic
contrast involving words in the same position in both halves, often the first
and last stressed words. As a stylistic device it has much in common with
rhyming couplets, particularly the epigrammatic couplet favoured by Alexander
Pope:
Sole judge of
Truth, in endless Error hurled; The glory, jest, and riddle of the world!
Essay on Man
See: epigram, oxymoron, parallelism.
antonym
Antonymy, from Greek anti ‘against’+onyma ‘name’, is the general term applied to the sense relation
involving ‘oppositeness’ of meaning. It is useful to distinguish three types of
‘oppositeness’, namely:
1 implicitly graded antonyms 2
complementarity
3 converseness
1 Implicitly graded antonyms are pairs of
items like big, small, good, bad.
Words like big and good can only be interpreted in terms of
being ‘bigger’ or ‘better’ than something which is established as the norm for
the comparison. Thus when we say that a boy is ‘big’ or that one boy is
‘bigger’ than another, we imply that ‘big’ is to be understood in the context
of boys. This accounts for the apparent paradox of a ‘big boy’ being smaller
than a ‘small horse’ because ‘small’ in the latter context means ‘small when
compared with other horses’.
In English, the larger member of the pair is the unmarked or neutral
member, and so we can ask:
How big is
it?
How old is
he?
How wide is the river?
without
implying that the subject is either big, old or wide. On the other hand, if we
ask:
How small is it?
we are
prejudging the answer, assuming that ‘it’ is small. There is nothing universal
about the larger member of the pair being the neutral member: in Japanese it is
the smaller member that is neutral.
2
Complementarity
refers to
the existence of such pairs as male and
female. It is characteristic of such
pairs that the denial of one implies the assertion of the other. Thus, if one
is not male, then one is female. Notice the difference between graded antonyms
of the ‘good/bad’ type and complementary pairs. To say:
John is not single.
implies:
John is married.
but to say:
John is not good.
does not imply:
John is bad.
In certain contexts, the
following can be complementary pairs:
black and white (piano keys and coffee) food and drink
land and sea
Related to complementary pairs are
sets of terms like colours or numbers where the assertion of one member implies
the negation of all the others. Thus if we have the set:
(violet, indigo, blue, green,
yellow, orange, red)
to say:
This is green.
implies that it is not violet, indigo, blue, yellow, orange or red. In a
two-term set such as: (male, female)
the assertion of ‘male’ implies
the denial of the only other member in the set. Such terms, as well as being
described as ‘complementary’, are often referred to as ‘incompatible’.
3
Converseness is the relationship that holds between such related pairs of sentences
as:
John sold it to me.
and:
I bought it from John.
where BUY and SELL are in a
converse relationship. English has a number of conversely related verbs and so
sentence converseness is a common phenomenon:
John lent the money to Peter.
Peter borrowed the money from John.
The most frequently occurring
converse verbs are:
borrow lend/loan command serve give take
lease rent
teach learn
Occasionally, the same verb can
be used in a conversely related pair of sentences:
John rented
the house to Peter.
Peter rented
the house from John.
Sometimes we find converse nouns
corresponding to converse verbs:
teach/learn teacher/student
treat/consult doctor/patient
See: gradable, semantics, synonym.
any way, anyway
Any way and anyway have distinct
meanings. Any way means ‘by any
method’:
Organise these
any way you like.
Anyway is a more mobile unit and can
usually be deleted without altering the grammatical acceptability of the sentence:
There wasn’t any blue paint
left, and (anyway) I prefer green (anyway).
Anyway tends to be colloquial and it
usually implies a dismissal of what has preceded it:
I don’t want
to see her; anyway I’m too busy.
Anyways is regionally marked and
regarded as nonstandard.
aphasia
Literally, this
word means ‘without speech’ but it is often applied to the sudden or gradual
loss of language as a result of age, an accident or a stroke. Most people have
some experience of ‘nominal aphasia’, the temporary loss of nouns. This reveals
itself in two ways: the inability to remember the name for something:
What’s the
word for that dessert I love?
and the use of
the wrong word in essentially the right context, as when we use ‘fridge’ when
we mean ‘cupboard’ or ‘cooker’. Such slips are commonplace and are made by all
speakers when they are tired or tense or getting old. The slips we make are
rarely random. The three words cited above have a lot in common: they are all
nouns; they can all hold food; they are all in the kitchen; and they all have
large doors. Other slips, such as the use of ‘bigger’ when we mean ‘better’,
suggest that we may store some vocabulary items, especially adjectives,
according to sound.
See: a- words,
acquisition of language, competence and performance, dyslexia.
aphesis
Aphesis, from Greek aphienai meaning ‘to let go’, involves the dropping of a short,
unaccented vowel from the beginning of a word:
along>long esquire>squire
Aphesis is thought to be a
gradual process, whereas clipping:
pianoforte>piano spectacles>specs
tends to be rapid and usually
applies to the loss of more than one syllable.
Aphesis is a
phenomenon of the spoken language although it can be extended to the written
medium. It is frequently found in English-related pidgins and creoles.
See: apocope, clipping, contraction, elision, pidgins and creoles,
syncope.
aphorism
An aphorism, from Greek aphorismos meaning ‘definition’,
expresses an abstract truth, usually concisely and memorably. Strictly, an
aphorism is based on personal experience, but the term has been widened to
apply also to maxims and proverbs. Francis Bacon uses aphorisms extensively:
Histories make
men wise; poets witty; the mathematics subtle; natural philosophy deep; moral
grave; logic and rhetoric able to contend.
Shakespeare
also uses aphorisms (sometimes taken from Bacon) as when Malvolio explains in Twelfth Night:
Some are born
great; some achieve greatness; and some have greatness thrust upon ’em.
See: maxim, proverb.
apocope
Apocope, from Greek apokoptein meaning ‘to cut off’, refers to the loss of one or more
sounds or letters from the end of a word. It has occurred historically in
English, as when verbs such as bindan and
singan became bind and sing. It also
features prominently in speech:
Michael>Mike sand>san
See: aphesis, syncope.
apostrophe
There is
considerable confusion concerning the use of the apostrophe although the rules governing its usage are simple.
Apostrophes must be used:
1 to
indicate possession of a noun or
noun phrase:
Mary’s bag
the boy’s
books the boys’ books
the Wife of
Bath’s hat
with ’s being used to indicate a singular
possessor and s’ indicating a plural
possessor.
2
to indicate time or quantity:
in a week’s time
my money’s
worth
3
in contractions to indicate the omission of
letters:
I am>I’m
cannot>can’t influenza>’flu’>flu
4
in the literary representation of nonstandard
speech:
‘My lan’, ef
Huck ain’t got him ag’in! Huck’s landed him high en dry this time, I tell you!
Hit’s de smartes’ trap I ever see a body walk inter…’
Mark Twain, Tom
Sawyer Abroad
Apostrophes are also sometimes
used to indicate the plural of numbers:
He reached his
peak in the 1970’s.
letters:
How many s’s are there in ‘Mississippi’?
abbreviations:
There are very
few women MP’s in the House of
Commons.
and words being discussed as
words:
How many the’s are there in that passage?
It is, however, advisable not to
overuse the apostrophe and so it is preferable to have:
the 1970s
650 MPs
There are a number of specific
problems relating to the apostrophe:
1 it’s always means ‘it is’. Apostrophes are not needed with
possessive pronouns:
His is better than
either yours or hers but theirs is the
best.
Whose is that?
2 Singular names ending in ‘s’
add ’s to indicate possession:
Keats’s poetry Yeats’s drama
Some writers avoid using ’s to indicate the possessive form of
names which have more than one sibilant (e.g. s, sh) in the last syllable:
Jesus’ followers Xerxes’ ambition
The wisest rule, however, is to be
consistent and treat these names as one would ‘Keats’ or ‘Jones’.
3 The use of ’s to form the
plural of words ending in vowels:
*avocado’s
*pizza’s
*potato’s
is incorrect but widespread. It
probably derives from the custom of using ’s to indicate the plural of
non-English words such as:
folio’s
quarto’s
The correct use of the apostrophe can add to the clarity and precision
of one’s writing.
See: punctuation.
