Talk:Converse (semantics)
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converse relation
[edit]A very unfortunate phrase or term to group such diverse cases of opposites. "Converses can be understood as a pair of words where one word implies a relationship between two objects, while the other implies the existence of the same relationship when the objects are reversed."
- Well, this is not true: buy and sell are NOT the same relationship.
If you inspect the meaning of the list of converse words overleaf, you may also conclude that none of the pairs are the product of any conversion. In fact, what happens is that the relation between the two entities (converses) is uni-directional and after the operation is completed, the two new entities (marked by two different names and concepts) cannot be converted back any more without further action the name of which is not possible to generate from the relation. Swapping the operands about does not make sense in every instance of the list. Therefore it would be better to identify the PoS type of such pairs before you generalize on their behaviour.
Your example: own and belong are relational opposites i.e. "A owns B" is the same as "B belongs to A." Win and lose i.e. if someone wins, someone must lose.
The inference goes that the two verbs used allow the conversion of the position of the two operands without changing the meaning of the original sentence. But that condition is not sufficient as if "B belongs to A" is NOT the same as "A owns B". So you must also add a frame of reference where such claims make sense. On the other hand somebody or any similar indefinite item cannot be contrasted with an definite item as such relation must be empirically established before you jump to the conclusion. Normally complementary opposites or pairs have a concept that includes them both and which also makes it clear such terms may refer to empty sets.