words that are their own opposites : sum , cont 'd . here are some explanations of three famous types of auto-antonymy . bob fradkin gives us the auto-antonymy of verbs of covering / uncovering , chuck bigelow follows the english blackening of indo - european ' white ' , and david gamon explores how modal expressions may come to mean their opposite . * * * bob fradkin ( raf100f @ oduvm . cc . odu . edu ) writes : dust is part of a series of noun-verb conversions related to coverings of things . if the noun gives a covering that is natural to the thing , then the verb means " remove the covering . " if the covering is imposed , the verb means " put the covering on . " so you get " shell an egg " " peel a banana " but " paint the furniture " " wax the floor . " dust is interesting because it can go either way : " dust the furniture " ( a sort of natural covering to be removed ) vs . " dust the crops " ( put stuff on them that they did n't have and would n't unless humans put it there ) . i mentioned this in my english grammar book " stalking the wild verb phrase " ( univ . pr . of america 1991 ) at the end of chp . 3 . * * * chuck bigelow ( bigelow @ cs . stanford . edu ) writes : ) from historical linguistics , a well known example of a word 's meaning shifting to its opposite is english " black " , of which the indo - european root is * bhel - ' to shine , flash , burn , be white ' etc . another modern reflex of * bhel is " bald " - ' having a shining or white head ' . from a variant of * bhel - , * bhelg - / * bhleg - ' to shine , burn ' comes germanic * blakaz ' burned ' , and thence old english " blaec " - ' black , that which has been burned ' . nifty . ( i ' m using calvert watkins ' dictionary of ie roots , houghton mifflin , as reference . ) * * * david gamon ( gamon @ garnet . berkeley . edu ) writes : enantiodriomia refers to the diachronic process of acquiring an " opposite " meaning , and i suppose a word having two such meanings would be an enantiodrome . i learned this , by the way , from professor matisoff here at berkeley . enantiodromia of modals / attitudinals the first example of such a word i had drawn to my attention is * doubt * , which historically has a meaning such that to doubt that something be true meant to suspect it to be true . in some parts of northern england , i ' m told , it still has this meaning . this was brought to my attention by professor bill stewart at cuny . another example i ' m familiar with is the english modal * must * , which is reconstructed as meaning " to have freedom or space " ; the gothic cognate meant " to be free or have permission ( to do something ) . " there are two classes of explanation offered in the literature for this particular example of enantiodromia . first explanation : negation drops out klaren ( 1913 ) and antinucci and parisi ( 1971 ) propose that the semantic shift took place in a negative context , as follows : neg ( free to do x ) - - ) compelled ( neg ( do x ) ) given the equivalence of a lack of freedom to do something and a compulsion to not do something , an innovative " compulsion " semantics was reanalyzed from the " freedom " semantics in a negative context with concomitant scope change of the negative operator . the reanalysis is made esepcially perspicuous given a & p 's notation , which decomposes the older meaning of the modal ( freedom / persmission ) into the primes neg ( bind ( neg ) ) : if one is free to do something , then one is not bound to do it ; if this is negated , the first two negs cancel out to leave only the narrow-scope neg , with a resultant meaning of bind neg or " compelled not " with narrow-scope neg , as follows : cause ( x ) ( neg ( neg ( bind ( neg ( john goes out ) ) ) ) ) [ = j . may not go out ] - - - ) cause ( x ) ( bind ( neg ( john goes out ) ) ) [ = john must not go out ] the same sort of explanation could be applied in reverse to the german modal * duerfen * , which underwent a semantic shift from an original " necessity " or " compulsion " semantics ( cf . mod . germ . * beduerfen * " need , require , " * duerftig * " needy , poor , lacking " ) to the modern " permission " meaning : bind ( neg ( do x ) ) - - ) neg ( free ( do x ) ) however , the a&p notation fails to link the conservative and innovative senses in a natural manner . second explanation : antithetical nature of modality the other kind of explanation has been proposed by breal ( quoted in bech 1951 , p . 19 ) , visser ( 1963-73 , p . 1797 ) and traugott ( 1989 ) , and basically proposes that permission is used as a polite way of imposing obligation , with the implication subsequently being semanticized , or the originally indirect speech act giving way to direct , conventionalized coding . one might see the same sort of shift occurring in present-day english in contexts that suggest that this sort of explanation may indeed be valid , as in " you may leave now . " one can see from this , at least , that what counts as an " opposite " is largely a matter of the scale one implicitly chooses along which to arrange the items at issue , or the specific semantic prime upon which one chooses to focus . also , one would n't even think of conceptualizing the innovative meaning as antonymous if most of the conservative meaning were n't being preserved intact . another example is * prove * , which in middle english meant something like " to test , " or in a legal context , " to put on trial . " when the expression " the exception proves the rule " was coined , it quite logically meant that an exception or counterexample to a generalization or claim makes you question the generalization or that the exception so to speak puts the rule on trial . as the verb * prove * shifted its meaning 180 degrees , the expression , illogical though it then became , was preserved simply because it 's so handy - - whenever someone presents counterevidence to your claim , you can write it off as " the exception that proves the rule " ! ( it 's interesting , by the way , how many " folk " justifications there are of the sense of this idiom - - but that 's another story . ) references antinucci , francesco and domenico parisi ( 1971 ) . on english modal verbs , cls 7 : 28-39 . bech , gunnar ( 1951 ) . grundzuege der semantischen entwicklungsgeschichte der hochdeutschen modalverba . copenhagen : ejnar munksgaard . klaren , g . a . ( 1913 ) . die bedeutungsentwicklung von koennen , moegen , und muessen in hochdeutschen . umea : aktiebolaget umea tryckerier . traugott , elizabeth c . ( 1989 ) . on the rise of epistemic meanings in english : an example of subjectification in semantic change . language 65 : 31-55 . visser , frederikus t . ( 1963-73 ) . an historical syntax of the english language . 3 vols . leiden : brill .
