The Functional and Stylistic Potential of Antonymy in Literary Text

The article examines antonymy as one of the system-forming lexical and semantic categories of language and analyses its functional and stylistic potential in literary texts. The author proceeds from the assumption that the opposition of word meanings is not reducible to a formal logical operation but becomes, in a literary text, an effective device of meaning generation. The principal types of antonyms are considered, along with contextual (occasional) oppositions that arise only within a particular verbal environment. Special attention is paid to the stylistic figures built upon antonymy — antithesis, oxymoron, acrothesis and irony. Drawing on Russian literary prose and poetry, the study demonstrates that antonymic relations perform text-forming, character-building and evaluative functions and participate in shaping the composition of a work. It is concluded that antonymy serves as one of the key means of creating semantic tension and expressiveness in literary speech.