An Explicative Analysis of Bura Antonyms

Abstract

In Semantics, antonyms are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs: wide/narrow, slow/fast and low/high. The notion of incompatibility refers to the fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not the other pair member. For instance, something that is narrow entails that it is not wide. The main thrust of this paper is to carry out an explicative analysis of Bura Antonyms. The paper examines the various types of antonyms, viz. gradable, Ungradable, converse and auto-antonyms. After close investigation, and judging from the data analyzed, Bura language has no auto-antonym. What is present from the data are gradable antonyms which occurred 10 times, Ungradable antonyms occurred 13 times and relational antonym occurred 7 times.