Sequential order of antonym pairs in Modern Standard Arabic: A corpus-based analysis

Abstract

The present study investigates the rules which govern antonym sequences in Modern Standard Arabic (MSA) by means of triangulation, i.e., a mixed-method design of quantification and qualification, whereby corpus tools are utilized to identify and examine antonym sequences in the Arabic corpus arTenTen18 integrated in Sketch Engine online interface. Ranging from qualitative to quantitative analyses, several studies took the order of antonym pairs in various languages as their focus, but no previous study examined this linguistic phenomenon in MSA using corpus-based methods. To give a panoramic account and conduct a rigorous analysis of antonym sequence in MSA, the current study combines both quantitative and qualitative approaches based upon studies across English, Serbian, Chinese, Persian, and Qur’anic Arabic, respectively. The study concludes that all the previously investigated antonym sequence rules drawn from English, Serbian, Chinese, Persian, and Qur’anic Arabic are replicable with an MSA corpus. Moreover, the rules controlling the co-occurrences of antonym pairs were also found to occasionally overlap. Contextual factors were found to play a crucial role in determining which rules are operative and which are solidly overruled.