terminology - Antonyms and mutually exclusive words


If north is the antonym of south, then what is the relationship between north and all other non-north directions such as east, west, south, south-east, south-west, etc.?


Similarly, if male is the antonym of female, then what is the relationship between male and the other non-male genders such as transgender variants, female, etc.?


Perhaps I can illustrate my question as:


        antonym
 north<--------->south

          ?
north<--------->everything non-north

They are perhaps mutually exclusive. But I expect that there's a semantic term that better describes this relationship. If there's no straightforward technical term available, I'd appreciate non-technical alternatives as well.



Answer



A good question, but not an easy answer.


Antonymy comes in several flavours:




  • Simple antonyms that are binary pairs - dead/alive, hit/miss, pass/fail etc. One is the absence of the other. Dead = not alive.




  • Gradable antonyms - hot (warm, tepid, cool)cold. One is not necessarily the negative of the other. It is not hot, not cold, but somewhere in between.




  • Reverses - one is the reverse of the other. Push/pull, right/left, north/south.




  • Converses - these are almost paraphrases and depend on view point. Above/below, own/belong, employer/employee - the library is above the shop and the shop is below the library.




  • Taxonomic sisters - this is where mutual exclusivity comes in. Red and blue are members of the same taxonomy of colours, and something that is red cannot be blue - they are mutually exclusive.




Your north-south is clearly an antonym, a reverse. Your other non-North directions could be antonyms by being taxonomic sisters, if you view south-east as excluding north or and south or any other direction; or gradable antonyms if you view south-east as including some 'south' in it.


Simple answer - they are all antonyms but of different kinds.


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