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2003
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Pierre Cadiot et al., « Sur le « sens opposé » des mots », Langages, ID : 10.3406/lgge.2003.913
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We reconsider the traditional notion of opposed lexical meanings ("antagonyms") through a stratification of this notion onto various levels: lexical, syntactic, enunciative, inferential, etc. This stratification reveals the artificiality of the term "opposed meanings" which oversimplifies constitutive uncertainties, smoothing over the complexities of a word's usage and profiling, and overlooking the investment made in different points of view. The apparent structural symmetry of this notion is a shallow characterization of the asymmetrical principles and forces which operate at the most basic level of meaning of these words. Inseparable from uses, these principle and forces function through different intertwined levels - motifs, profiles, themes - which call for less symmetrical ways of construing and viewing lexical entries.