本文旨在評判「反義同詞」此一概念以及其歷時分析。本文首先指出，多數反義同詞應為「（近）反義同詞」，因為其反義皆為廣義上的反義。其次，本文以「冗」（閒散、繁忙之意）的歷史發展為基礎，評判Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk（1998）的認知語法分析。該分析指出，反義同詞始於觀看的認知機制：同一個現實的片段能從相反的角度觀看。然而，「冗」的歷史牽涉到多個現實的片段，而且漸進的語義延伸、誘發類推的相似詞彙，才是其發展的關鍵。最後，本文根據「冗」的歷史分析，加以對「同音異義迴避」假說的討論，提出狹義的反義同詞（亦即，ㄧ詞彙具有同源且相反的意義，且彼此的差異微乎其微），不管是歷時還是共時，應為罕見，因為正如同音異義詞，兩者的溝通效率皆不高。

This paper critically evaluates the notion of antonymous polysemy and its diachronic analysis. First, most purported cases of antonymous polysemy are argued to be more appropriately (near-)antonymous polysemy, as they are only antonymous in a broad sense and on a coarse-grained perspective on meaning. Second, the history of rǒng ‘idle; busy’ in Chinese is analyzed and contrasted with Lewandowska-Tomaszczyk’s (1998) analysis of (near-)antonymous polysemy in Cognitive Grammar, which hypothesizes that it results from the mechanism whereby the same fragment of reality can be viewed from alternative perspectives. However, more than one fragment is shown to be involved in the history of rǒng and rather than alternative perspectives, gradual meaning extensions and similar, analogy-inducing expressions are crucial. Finally, drawing on rǒng and the literature on homophony avoidance, it is hypothesized that genuine cases of antonymous polysemy (related senses that are not only opposites but also minimally different) should be rare diachronically and synchronically, because, like homophony, they are not communicatively efficient.

反義詞、多義詞、同音詞、語意變化、認知語法

Antonymy, polysemy, homophony, semantic change, Cognitive Grammar