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How is the opposite of compound phrases of the form "adjective noun" constructed? Is "opposite of [adjective] [noun]" the same as "[opposite of adjective] [opposite of noun]", the same as "[adjective] [opposite of noun]" or the same as "[opposite of adjective] [noun]".

E.g., what the opposite of "short woman"? "short man", "tall woman" or "tall man"?

Brezel
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    It depends on the speaker/writer's intent; it's not well-defined in general. As an analogy, consider the question of how an image's reflection looks - it depends on where the mirror is placed (e.g. above, below, side, front, etc). – Lawrence May 02 '16 at 11:57
  • Of course I'm only interested in the case where both words have an opposite and it is clear which opposite is meant, if one word has several. – Brezel May 02 '16 at 11:59
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    They are not 'compounds' since they do not form a new noun. "Short" and "tall" are simply optional modifiers of nouns. The opposite of "short man" is "tall man" because of the adjectival modifier of opposite meaning. – BillJ May 02 '16 at 12:01
  • @Brezel Yes, that's assumed. Each of your three suggestions is a valid opposite. – Lawrence May 02 '16 at 12:09
  • I've always maintained that the true opposite, including switching polarity, renders nearly the same. In this case, '(is a) short woman' becomes '(isn't multiple) tall men'. Of course, this is my somewhat humorous answer. – JDF May 02 '16 at 12:10

1 Answers1

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As you clarify in comments, we'll assume that all candidate negations have been determined.

Syntactically, if you negate an adjective-noun phrase, @BillJ's comment makes sense: negate the adjective. So the opposite of short woman is tall woman. This becomes problematic when you have multiple adjectives - e.g. tall, famous woman, where your question repeats with respect to the multiple adjectives. If we want the (unique) semantic opposite to a phrase, we need more information.

To derive an opposite or negation, you need to specify what quality is being opposed or negated.

Here are some examples:

  • take one of the ideas in @Deonyi's comment: if the quality is plurality (singular vs plural), then the opposite of short woman is short women;
  • if the quality is the adjective, then the opposite of short woman is tall woman;
  • if the quality is gender, then the opposite of short woman is short man; and
  • if the quality is age (adult vs child), then the opposite of short woman is short girl, etc.

Once you specify the quality being negated, whether explicitly or via the context, the negation follows immediately. Without that specification, there are no grounds on which to judge any candidate negation correct.

Community
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Lawrence
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