Opposites — Antónimos

[chileno]

Originally Posted by irmamar

This link may be useful.

Why nobody said "salado"?

I did, but in English.

I thought these weren't antonyms.

[Tarential]

If I'm not mistaken, not all opposites are antonyms but all antonyms are opposites. This particular combination may not be an antonym, so if I'm wrong about that I apologize.

One thing of note I should mention. While the opposite of "sweet" always turns up "sour" in my mind, the opposite of "bitter" is certainly "sweet". So while I wouldn't think "bitter" is the best word to list as the opposite, it matches the description. I asked a few other people those questions and got the same answers ("What is the opposite of sweet? Sour. What is the opposite of bitter? Sweet."), for whatever it's worth.

[Perikles]

Originally Posted by Tarential

If I'm not mistaken, not all opposites are antonyms but all antonyms are opposites.

'Antonym' can have a more restricted definition than 'opposite', but outside the realm of lexical semantics, they are usually treated as being identical.

The problem is that a lot of words do not have an exact opposite. If sweet is a taste sensation, it does not necessarily have an opposite sensation such as hot versus cold.

[Tarential]

Not all opposites are complementaries (ie hot vs cold, good vs bad). That is only one type of opposite. For example, a "parent" vs a "child" are not complementaries, but they are a type of opposite. So even if it's not as straightforward as "tall" vs "short", the word "sweet" still does have an opposite. It might, in fact, have multiple opposites as I pointed out in a previous post (example: "stationary" vs "moving" "speeding" "flying" or a number of other words).

To add to what I said before, antonyms are gradable opposites; I'm still not 100% certain whether sweet to sour is gradable (I'm sure there are ways to measure how sweet or sour something is, I just don't know them), which is why I said I'm not sure if it was an antonym or not. It is, however, an opposite, and either way my statement regarding antonyms stands: All antonyms are opposites, but not all opposites are antonyms.

[poli]

I think the opposite of sour is bitter.

[vita32]

Originally Posted by Tarential

If I'm not mistaken, not all opposites are antonyms but all antonyms are opposites. This particular combination may not be an antonym, so if I'm wrong about that I apologize.

One thing of note I should mention. While the opposite of "sweet" always turns up "sour" in my mind, the opposite of "bitter" is certainly "sweet". So while I wouldn't think "bitter" is the best word to list as the opposite, it matches the description. I asked a few other people those questions and got the same answers ("What is the opposite of sweet? Sour. What is the opposite of bitter? Sweet."), for whatever it's worth.

If we think of antonyms as true opposites (that is they must be on the opposite ends of a stick or pole, so to speak and not one lying somewhere in between the two ends). On the taste gradient, sweet will lie on one end of the pole and bitter will lie on the opposite end; and sour will lie somewhere between these two(sweet/bitter) why? Because, sweet is a very pleasant taste and I don't know that there are other tastes that would surpass this attribute. Bitter is very unpleasant and all other tastes (salty/sour etc.) will be found in this imaginary gradient but not at the extreme end. I think of antonyms as always lying on opposite extremes.

The figurative use of sweet/bitter as opposites is also logical. For example, one may say: Oh how sweet it would be to be reunited with my loved one/ones; and also: I fought bitterly with my spouse ( we don't say I fought sourly); Although sour is sometimes used to describe a relationship that had gone bad. It does not describe it in an extreme way. The word "Bitter" had been used to describe extreme divorce procedures between husbands and wives. This is just my opinion and I'm open to be persuaded otherwise.

[laepelba]

I totally understand the (ongoing) debate about "opposites" vs. "antonyms". But when I originally proposed this thread, I was only going for the kinds of things that are taught to school children ... at least taught to school children in the US ... up/down, black/white, crazy/sane, left/right, east/west, etc.....

[AngelicaDeAlquezar]

Just two small corrections: no space before a comma and if you change the place of the accent mark, the word will have to be pronounced differently.

Originally Posted by carolgreen186

yeah, Símpatico Simpático - Antipático

[JPablo]

Apático - Dinámico