The Oppositional Method

The oppositional method was developed by N.Trubetskoy to investigate phonology. Comparing vowels and consonants in Russian and English, we see that they are contrasted to each other as to their length. Hence they can be classified into short and long ones. Consonants are contrasted as to voice being involved. Hence they are classed into voiced and devoiced. This opposition within vowels does not exist in Russian, so Russian and English vowels do not correlate as to lengt h. Consonants do correlate as to voice in both languages.

The oppositional method is based on discrepancy, antinomy or objective contrasts which are to be distinguished in objective reality between phenomena. Life is based on harmony and disharmony of oppositions, which is the basic law of dialectics.

Things contrasted to each other always have something in common, they are comparable and have some basic likeness. Chinese philosophers before Christianity, Jordano Bruno … - they all believed that “ Contraria sunt complementa ”, i.e. contrary notions complete each other. This idea is aptly expressed by the American poet Wallace Stevens (1879 – 1955):

Things of opposite nature seem to depend on one another

as a man depends on a woman,

day on night, the imagined on the real.

The Czech scholars understand language as a system of elements which are interrelated on the basis of their similarities and differences, that is oppositions.

The main notions are: opposition, the root of opposition, the marked member of the opposition. The unmarked member of the opposition, a distinctive feature, neutralisation. Opposition is a functionally relevant relationship of partial differences between partially similar elements. The root of opposition is the basis of an opposition. The distinctive feature distinguishes the marked member of the opposition from the unmarked one. In the opposition table:: tables (-s is a distinctive element)

As to the number of constituents oppositions differ into binary, ternary, multi-element ones. As to relations between constituents there are privative oppositions read:: is read (binary); equipollen t oppositions (равноценные) - both elements are marked went:: go:: shall go (ternary), man:: woman; gradual oppositions (ternary) fine – finer – the finest( ternary);black:: grey:: dim:: vague:: clear:: bright:: radiant:: white (multi-element), which can be reduced to a binary privative opposition black:: white.

The distinction between the marked and unmarked elements can be neutralized when the unmarked element signifies what is meant by the marked element: I hear that he came:: I have heard that he came. Where have you been, what have you done, what brings you her.).

He left which shocked everybody:: He left and that shocked everybody (subordination:: coordination).

N.Trubetskoy was right stressing that oppositional method can be applied to all domains of linguistics, but that it is especially suitable for description of morphological categories. Binary relations are especially evident on the morphological level, which better reflects the structural organisation of a particular language. Principles of privative opposition are easily applied to English morphology: common case:: genitive case; perfect:: non perfect; active:: passive, etc.

Grammatical categories in English are represented by at least 2 forms standing in opposition: read:: is read (voice); read:: is reading (aspect); read:: has read (correlation, perfect); boy:: boys (number); boy:: boy’s (case); fine:: finer:: the finest (degrees of comparison).

Oppositions can be paradigmatic and syntagmatic. Paradigmatic oppositions on the lexico-semantic level are represented by synonyms and antonyms which belong to the same semantic field (dawn:: sunset; left::right, etc.). Semantic fields can be subdivided into microfields (bedroom furniture and office furniture are microfields of the semantic field of furniture).

N.A. Shekhtman elaborated the method of syntagmatic oppositions studying semantic relations between semantically reduplicated words in a context. Please:: delight is a semantic reiteration based on the gradual semantic opposition. Syntagmatically opposed can be words which refer to antonymous semantic fields on the paradigmatic level (Her hideou s face was unutterably beautiful with grief). Contextually opposed can be words which belong to absolutely different semantic fields (How frail poem s are in a world burning with flowers ).

The oppositional method can be amply used to analyze linguistic facts paradigmatically and syntagmatically on all linguistic levels.On the phonological level voiced consonants are opposed to devoiced consonants. On the morphological level the nouns in the singular are opposed to the nouns in the plural (table:: tables); on the lexico-semantic level words are semantically opposed (man:: woman, singular:: plural). On the syntactical level one-member sentences are opposed to two-member sentences, coordination (parataxis) is opposed to subordination (hypotaxis), etc..

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