Antonymy as unreplaceable communicative resource (case study of L. Feuchtwanger’s novel «Exile»)

The article is devoted to the study of a particular aspect of the phenomenon of linguistic antonymy - its irreversibility in the processes of communication, the impossibility of its replacement by other means of linguistic expression in certain types of speech contexts. The article substantiates the point of view about the deep essential rootedness of antonymy in extralinguistic reality, as well as its priority status in the systematics of linguistic phenomena, which is explained by the fundamental constructive significance of the principle of binary-oppositional structuring in the ontology of the physical world, consciousness and linguistic activity. The picture of the world provides many examples of binary archetypes functioning as a generative model of complexly organized systems. Mythology, which is the first human experience of artistic and ideological reflection on reality, is built on a system of the simplest archetypal oppositions, such as "friend or foe", "light-darkness", "good-evil", "chaos-order", "center-periphery", etc. In the history of intellectual culture, the principle of binary oppositions acts as the most important factor in the implementation and representation of the activity of consciousness, human thinking, and cultural experience. In language, semantic opposition manifests itself as an experience of naturally formed systematization in the sphere of semantic relations, which precedes scientific analysis. In the processes of communication, antonymy acts as a unique resource of linguistic representation, which is in a relationship of interdependent functional correlation with certain types of contexts and object-reference situations. In works of literature, the discursive correlate of linguistic antonymy is artistic contrast, which is realized primarily and most vividly in the classical models of antithesis and oxymoron. Rich illustrative material of this kind is provided to the researcher by the novel by Lion Feuchtwanger "Exile" analyzed in the article.