I. YAKOVLEV CHUVASH STATE PEDAGOGICAL UNIVERSITY BULLETIN

antonymy, language levels, level analysis, word formation, inflection, language integrity

The article describes the consistent transition from one level to another in the formation of the hierarchical structure of the English language. The relevance of this work lies in the fact that it establishes the current status of antonymy, which has been previously considered as a linguistic and speech phenomenon (at the levels of paradigmatics and syntagmatics) according to the most progressive interpretation, but now extends to all levels of linguistics. The study is based on economic terms (words and phrases) selected from the English-Russian Economic Dictionary edited by Professor, Doctor of Economics A. V. Anikin, and various economic realities from the Dictionary of USA by the encyclopedic scientist, Doctor of Philology G. D. Tomakhin. The study revealed that word-formation and word-inflection, as two subjects of linguistics (reflecting two different processes in the language), allow us to distinguish between antonymy at the level of morphemes (according to the definition, a prefix is attached to the entire word, and this process can be fully described as word-formation) and antonymy at the level of parts of speech (word-formation and word inflectional morphemes allow us to identify different parts of speech). The level of concepts is based on the fundamental principle of the hierarchical structure of language, in which units in the language play a dual role: they are not only indivisible in themselves, but also form part of larger units and combine smaller elements. The remaining levels can be identified based on several other fundamental principles of language theory, which complement the identified levels.

Shakiryanov, Lev Morisovich – Candidate of Philology, Teaching Assistant at the Department of English, Ufa University of Science and Technology, Ufa, Russia, https://orcid.org/0000-0002-3110-8271, levshakiryanov@gmail.com