MARKED AND UNMARKED TERMS:
In binary oppositions:
The terms marked and unmarked are frequently used in binary oppositions. It means that one term does not have the same weight, but the one (unchecked) is neutral or more positive in contrast to the other term. As Geoffery leech observes, where there is a contrast between two or more terms, tenses or cases, one of them is marked if it has any extra ‘affixes’ in contrast to the one that is not marked and does not contain any marker. For example, cat is a neutral and unmarked term, while cats is marked with an -s suffix, similarly, actor is an unmarked term while actress is a term marked with an -ess affix, also polite is a positive term in contrast to its negative term. ‘impolite’. In general, the plural of nouns in English are marked terms (books) compared to the singular (book). In the French language, the feminine is generally marked and the masculine is an unmarked term, eg petit in contrast to petite; However, in English, if the sex is marked, it becomes lexical, that is, giving special words to one sex and none for the other, for example, the word duck is a feminine term that is not marked, while masculinity it is marked by drake, who is absent in duck. and this word serves the whole species. In addition, an opposite mark is observed in the pronouns, that is, masculine as an unmarked term and a feminine term as marked. For example,
One in YOUR senses would not do something like that (unchecked)
One in YOUR senses would not do something like that (marked by femininity)
It is the male sex that is marked because the first statement could refer to any gender, but the second will specify it for femininity.
In polar oppositions:
The same type of marked / unmarked distinction is also observed in polar oppositions (which have two poles) good / bad, rich / poor, day / night, low / high, short / long and we prefer to measure things by the mean of the length. instead of brevity. We would rather ask how long this fabric is, how short is this fabric, or how tall is this building rather than how low is this building. Because the first will give a neutral expression which means that it can be long or short, while in the second we only have one possibility of being short. It is not only based on the measurement scale, but can also be used in such cases,
How well do you speak French? Very poorly
How BAD do you speak French? Like a native
The first statement is neutral and different from the second which is marked in this context, so the answer is completely different.
The brand can be defined as the relationship between form and meaning. If there is a contrast of two different shapes in a single dimension, the unchecked would be neutral and could apply to the entire dimension rather than a specific aspect of it. It could be argued that this phenomenon is due to the negative-positive inherent in the semantic opposition itself. Normally unmarked is considered positive while marked is taken as a negative term, eg happy / unhappy, complete / incomplete, stable / unstable; However, in some cases there is an invisible element of negation, as it is easy to define dead by I dont live that I live for not dead.
Polyyanna hypothesis:
The detailed explanation of the marking is given on the basis of a psychological or experiential basis for which some psycholinguists have given a supposed hypothesis called the “Pollyanna hypothesis” according to which people tend to think more positively towards life and pay more attention to the brighter side of life. which provides an argument for associating the good with “unmarked” terms and the bad with “marked” suffixes and prefixes.
In relative opposition:
There is also the possibility of bias in relative oppositions, but it is better to call this ‘domain’ rather than ‘markup’, for example in parent / child, forward / backward, correct / incorrect, the first term seems to be more dominant than the other. one, so we prefer to put the dominant term before (parent-child) or maybe give both terms a name using a dominant one (property). Marking and dominance appear to have variations in strength, but are deeply dependent on psychological basis. It has no logical meaning to give symbols to these opposition terms. The distinction between ‘dead’ and ‘alive could have the same logical explanation as + dead / -dead as for -living / + dead because they are both logically equivalent. This shows that the unmarked term has won the discrimination of + and the up arrow, while the dominant term of an opposition has won the right arrow.
But the distinctive term for the marked term is never omitted and the neutralization of the opposition (apparent, right, good, etc.) is still indicated.
Ruth Kempson’s rule:
To account for the lexical ambiguities due to markup, Ruth has given a rule. For this rule we can take the dog and the bitch as an example.
If a) there are two words W1 and W2 that have meanings m1 and m2, and m1 differs from m2 only in having an additional characteristic -X
And if b) there is no word like W3 with meaning m3 and m2 differs m3 in having an additional characteristic of + X
It means that m3 is an additional meaning of W1. (m2 and m3 are cohyponyms of m3 and therefore W1 is an unmarked term). This rule explains all the ambiguities by having the first term as more general that contains an additional characteristic while the second as more specific. There is also an explanation for other types of ambiguities, such as that it is a tautology to say that a calf is a young cow, but on the other hand it is not a tautology to say that this is a cow not a calf. This is how ambiguity is created through the words themselves. There may also be some of the hierarchical structures for the same word.
