The Discourse Functions of Antonyms in Faceless by Amma Darko

This article investigates the discourse functions of antonymy in Amma Darko’s Faceless. It also explores the principles that govern the order of antonymous pairs in Faceless. The study is motivated by an observation, based on corpus data, that certain antonymous pairs co-occur in written data, and that they perform various discourse functions. There is also the argument that certain antonymous pairs tend to be used in a preferred sequence in the sentence. Data was collected from Amma Darko’s Faceless , a novel about the plight of street children in Ghana. The authors argue that in Faceless , antonymous pairs often co-occur within one word class and that these antonym pairs function differently to highlight some of the themes of the novel. The authors also argue that in the novel, antonym sequence is influenced by the following principles: idiomaticity and non-gender, chronology and positivity.

happen to street children who take their fate into their own hands.These include poverty, child abuse and neglect, rape and defilement, child prostitution, single parenthood, and child labour.The purpose is to study the discourse functions of antonymy in the novel and to show how the discourse functions highlight some of the themes in the novel.
According to Dakubu, Ghana has about fifty (50) languages, the major ones being Akan, Ewe, Ga, Nzema Dagaare and Dagbani. 17Although the English language is a second language, it is the official language in Ghana.Adika reports that since its implantation in Ghana, the then Gold Coast, in the early part of the 16 th century to date, "English in Ghana has been expanding against the backdrop of an intensely multilingual environment." 18The Ghana Living Standard Survey (GLSS) (2008) report indicates that on literacy, about fifty-one percent (51%) of adults in Ghana can read and write in English or a local language, with about thirty-seven percent (37%) of adults being literate in both English and Ghanaian languages.Adika argues that "the English language has rapidly grown to become a formidable force in social and community interaction, cross-ethnic communication, and in the dialogues relating to democratic practice and governance, as well as a source of debate among academics, policymakers, and politicians in its usage as the medium of instruction in early primary school." 19n the literature, it has already been noted that the English language, as a result of language contact, has undergone some form of indigenization or nativisation with the Ghanaian languages.This variety has been described as Ghanaian English. 20Sey observes a correlation between the level of one's education and the type of English used in Ghana. 21He argues that there are four levels, ranging from that which is close to Standard British English and used by the well-educated, Educated Ghanaian English (EGE), to Pidgin English or the Ghanaian Pidgin English (GhPE).Amma Darko is not a native speaker of English; she was born, raised and educated in Ghana.Since she is well-educated, the position of the authors is that her novels can be said to have been written in the Educated Ghanaian English variety.Since this variety is not Standard British English, but one close to it, a study of the discourse functions of antonyms in such a variety will complement the others on antonymy in the English language.

Theoretical Considerations -Antonymy
According to Jones, the word antonymy was coined by C. J. Smith in 1867 as the opposite of "synonymy". 22Since then, numerous attempts have been made to define it semantically as "oppositeness of meaning," 23 and lexically as a lexical relation. 24However, Jones has argued that any definition of antonymy must be lexical as well as semantic. 25Antonym relations have long been classified based on their logical properties such as contradiction, contrariety, and converseness by semanticists. 26It was only recently that attention has been turned to antonyms in discourse.Mettinger  (1994) initially outlined the functions, using a small corpus of modern fiction. 27However, Jones, using is compared to the short, in terms of answering a given question.Whereas (3a) takes the form of an X is more [adj] than Y, (3b) takes the framework of X rather than Y.
(3) a.However, light crude is more easily broken down than heavy crude from the Middle East, making it less damaging environmentally.
b The question is perhaps easier to answer for the long term than the short. 41

Distinguished Antonymy
According to Jones, distinguished antonymy occurs when the antonymous pair in a construction "alludes to the inherent semantic dissimilarity of those words." 42Jones has also noted that the typical frameworks for this function are the difference between X and Y, separating X and Y and a gap between X and Y. 43 Two examples from Jones have been provided in (4) below for illustration.Both examples refer to the difference between the antonym pairs and also illustrate the framework between X and Y.
(4) a.But far from that, Mortimer's father had not given him even a basic moral education, such that today he still doesn't know the difference between right and wrong, or so he said.
b.But it made the point that the division between gay and straight is one of many rifts in our society. 44

Transitional Antonymy
Transitional antonymy, according to Jones, is "the co-occurrence of an antonymous pair within a framework that expresses a movement or change from one location or state to another." 45The typical frameworks for this function, he further explains, are from X to Y, turning X into Y and X gives way to Y.In (5), "from success to failure" in (5a), and "from optimism to pessimism" in (5b) are both transitional antonyms with the form from X to Y.
(5) a.Her film career similarly has lurched from success to failure, with enormous periods out of work.
b.The atmosphere of the negotiations was tense, discussion uneven, the mood in both camps swung from optimism to pessimism. 46

Negated Antonymy
Negated Antonymy has been defined by Jones as "the co-occurrence of an antonymous pair within a framework that negates one antonym as a device to augment the other." 47Murphy et al explain that this function emphasizes one member pair by using it with the negation of the other member. 48The typical frameworks, according to Jones, are X not Y, X instead of Y and X as opposed to Y.In (6a), the negated antonym pairs are pessimism, not optimism, and in (6b) they are war, not peace.Both examples also have X not Y framework.(6) a.In my opinion, the public has cause for pessimism, not optimism, about the Government's plans for a radical reorganisation of arts funding.
b.Well, without the combination of an arms race and a network of treaties designed for war, not peace, it would not have started. 49

Extreme Antonymy
According to Jones, Extreme Antonymy occurs when the antonymous pair within a framework unites the outer-most areas of their given semantic scale. 50

Idiomatic Category
Jones defines this category as "the occurrence of an antonymous pair that would be recognised as a familiar idiom, proverb or cliché. 53Some examples include those in (8) (8) a. pennywise and pound foolish b. easy come, easy go c. through thick and thin

Jones principles that govern the order of antonyms
Jones analysed the ordering of antonyms within the patterns of antonym co-occurrence in a sentence.He found out that the majority of the pairs favoured one sequence over the other.The sequence rules that he identified are morphology, positivity, magnitude, chronology, gender and idiomaticity.
Morphology is when the root antonym precedes the derived one as in correct/incorrect.Positivity is when a more positive antonym precedes the negative one as in good/bad.By magnitude, he means the antonym denoting more of a quantity precedes the one denoting less as in large/small.Chronology refers to antonyms denoting temporal sequence in the real world reflecting this sequence in the sentence as in begin/end.Gender here refers to situations where males precede females and masculine precedes feminine.With phonology, the shorter antonym tends to precede the longer one.Idiomaticity is when one antonym precedes the other in a phrase, which has a semi-idiomatic status.Using Jones'approach, the authors also studied the principles that govern the order of the antonyms identified in faceless.

METHODOLOGY
It has been noted, by Jones for example, that there is no single definition of antonymy that has been accepted universally.This makes sampling of antonym pairs problematic.This is because the question will remain whether the identified or selected are genuine or not.However, some attempts at the sampling of antonym pairs have been made in the literature.Deese, for example, using psycholinguistic elicitation tests as data, identified forty (40) antonymous pairs, which he considered the most fundamental in English. 54In addition to what native speakers could pass for 'good opposites', Deese also identified those "which are less grained in the mental lexicon." 55This made Deese broaden his 50 Jones, Antonymy: A Corpus-Based ApproachI, 91. 51Murphy et al., "Discourse Functions of Antonymy: A Cross-Linguistic Investigation of Swedish and English,"2161. 52Jones, Antonymy: A Corpus-Based ApproachI, 91-92. 53Jones, Antonymy: A Corpus-Based ApproachI, 92. 54James Deese, "The Associative Structure of Some Common English Adjectives," Journal of Verbal Learning and Verbal Behavior 3, no. 5 (1964): 347-57. 55Jones, Antonymy: A Corpus-Based Approach, 27; Deese, "The Associative Structure of Some Common English Adjectives." criteria although this has been criticised.Deese also analysed adjective pairs only.He thus did not study pairs belonging to the other word classes.
Another attempt at cataloguing antonymous pairs is Roget's Thesaurus.As Jones has also noted, the thesaurus is relevant to a study of antonyms because Roget chose to present the ideas in opposition to one another. 56In the original introduction to the thesaurus, Roget states: For the purpose of exhibiting with greater distinctness the relations between words expressing opposite and correlative ideas, I have, whenever the subject admitted of such an arrangement, placed them in two parallel columns on the same page, so that each group of expressions may be readily contrasted with those which occupy the adjacent column, and constitutes antithesis.Roget's Thesaurus. 57ttinger, analysed a corpus of forty-three (43) novels and isolated ten (10) syntactic frames within which antonyms are found. 58Mettinger used Roget's Thesaurus as a primary source of antonymous pairs.He however acknowledged that they "contain a number of lexical items that are hardly used in contemporary English." 59In the study, Mettinger argues that there are two kinds of antonyms. 60These are "systemic opposites "and "non-systemic opposites".According to him, systemic opposites have meaning relations in strictly semantic terms whereas non-systemic opposites require contextual and encyclopaedic knowledge for an interpretation.
For a theoretical framework within which antonymous pairs would be treated in this study, the researchers found it difficult to focus on one.Therefore, for the purposes of this study, the overriding criterion for the selection of the pairs was personal intuitions as near-native speakers of English.The pairs identified are those the researchers felt would be widely accepted as 'good pairs', especially in the contexts in which they have been used.The data was collected from Faceless. 61The novel was thoroughly read by all the researchers and the antonymous pairs identified in all the sentences were noted for analysis.All the extracted sentences by each author were coded.All the sentences were discounted in which the word pair had not been used contrastively.Where there was a disagreement on the word pair, those sentences were also discounted.The pairs were examined carefully and their ordering was also identified.

FINDINGS AND DISCUSSIONS
In all, the researchers identified one hundred and forty-three (143) constructions, which they considered contained antonymous pairs and were analysed for their discourse functions (See Appendix A).Of these, about 48% involved nouns, 13% verbs, 27% adjectives and 9% adverbs.This reveals that antonymous pairs often co-occur within one word class.However, there was one instance where it occurred across a one-word class.This supports Fellbaum's findings that antonyms occur across as well as within word classes. 62The number of noun pairs being high supports Lobanova's study, which found the largest number of opposites expressed by nouns as opposed to adjectival pairs of opposites. 63

Nature of the Word Classes
Table 1 below shows the nature of the antonymous pairs and their frequencies in the novel. 56Jones, Antonymy: A Corpus-Based Approach, 28. 57Roget's Thesaurus (London: Sphere Books, 1952), 545. 58Mettinger, Aspects of Semantic Opposition in English,94. 59Mettinger, Aspects of Semantic Opposition in English,94. 60Mettinger, Aspects of Semantic Opposition in English,94. 61Darko, Faceless. 62Fellbaum, "Co-Occurrence and Antonymy." 63Ganna Volodymyrivna Lobanova, The Anatomy of Antonymy: A Corpus-Driven Approach (University of Groningen Groningen, The Netherlands, 2012).The Noun Phrase Pairs The NP Pairs were categorised into two (See Appendix B for the noun pairs).The first category includes head nouns in noun phrases.Some of these occurred with or without determiners and had no modifiers.Some also occurred with either pre or post modifiers.Some examples of those that belonged to the first category include those in ( 9) below.In (9), the pairs are "a boy" and "a girl", "her hand" and "legs", "softness" and "bones", "sheep" and "goats" and "ghosts" and "human beings".Whereas the pairs in (9a), (9b) and (9c) are concrete nouns, the pairs in (9d) and (9e) consist of abstract nouns "softness" and "ghost", and concrete nouns "bones" and "human beings".The second category includes those nouns that occurred in prepositional phrases and function as complements to the prepositions.The prepositional phrases occurred in simple sentences as the examples in (10a), (10b) and (10c) illustrate.(10d) is a compound-complex sentence and the pairs in (10d) occurred in two different sentences.In (10a), the noun pairs functioning as complements to the prepositions are "dream" and "reality".In (10b) and (10c), they are "head" and "toe".In (10d) and (10e), they are "night" and "morning", and "dream" and "real life" respectively.(10) a. Slowly, she began her descent from dream to reality. 69.It engulfed her from head to toe. 70.The woman had bleached her skin from head to toe. 71.Kpakpo was desirous to retire to bed with her at night and woke up with her in the morning. 72.In the dream, she simply entered the toilet with a roof and did her thing.No war as it was many times when she had to do it in real life. 73e Verb Phrase (VP) Pairs The VP Pairs identified are twenty-two (22).These occurred in one sentence, often in a compound sentence as shown in (11)

The Adjective Phrase (ADJP) Pairs
The ADJP Pairs identified can also be categorised into two -those that function as pre-modifiers of nouns and those that function as complements of verbs and occurred in predicates (See Appendix B for the adjective pairs).The examples in ( 13) and ( 14) illustrate this.In (13a), the noun head "leg" has been pre-modified with the adjective pairs "right" and "left" which are antonymous.Similarly in (13b), the noun head "demands" has been pre-modified with the antonymous adjectival pair "financial" and "material".In (13c) and (13d), the adjectival modifiers used as the elements of the opposition are "human" and "vehicular", and "boy" and "girl" respectively.In (13e), "tea", "sugar" and "butter" are the adjectives modifying the head noun "bread".(13) a.Her right leg struck at flesh.Her left leg kicked with muscle. 82b.Especially when it came to some of the methods and timings of Essie's financial and material demands. 83c.Agbobloshie's human and vehicular traffic was heavy as usual. 84d.How many boy thieves out there are actually girl thieves? 85e.No tea bread, no sugar bread, no butter bread. 86 has already been indicated, some of the antonymous adjective pairs function as complements of verbs and thus occurred in the predicates of sentences.Some examples from the text have been provided in ( 14) below.In (14a), "good" and "bad" complement the verb "were" which is a copula or a linking verb.Similarly in (14b) "real" or "imagined" the conjoined adjective pairs complement the verb "were".In (14c) below, the adjective pairs occur in two different sentences.In (14c), the adjective "smart" has been used as a pre-modifier of the noun "guy".However, it contrasts with "not smart" an 74 Darko, Faceless, 27. 75  adjective phrase that functions as a complement of the verb "be" or "are".The examples in ( 13) and ( 14) support Fellbaum's (1995) position that antonyms co-occur within word class.( 14) a.And others that were neither good nor bad. 87b.Sometimes she wasn't sure which of the stories I told her were real or imagined. 88c.You talk a lot on the radio like you are a smart guy but you are not smart at all, are you? 89metimes the adjective modifiers are more than one as in the case in (15a) where the items or the adjectives pre-modifying the noun head are three (3).They are "pure", "white" and "home bred", and "pure", "black" and "home bred".In (15a), the adjectival pairs in opposition are "white" and "black".The example in (15b) also contains more than one modifier.Interestingly, here, the elements of opposition involve both the adjective pairs "single unmarried" and "childless married" and the noun heads "mother" and "woman".( 15) a.And a pure white home bred fowl fathered by a pure black home bred cock. 90.The single unmarried mother or the childless married woman? 91

The Adverb Phrase (ADVP) Pairs
The ADVP Pairs identified in the text were few and were mainly found in complex sentences as illustrated in (16a &b).Sometimes, they occurred in simple sentences (16c) and (16d) or in compound sentences (16e).( 16) a. Odarley, Fofo's friend, was fast asleep when she felt the tap on her arm; gently at first, then harshly. 92.One generation to the other was sometimes like the horizon.So far away and yet so clear to see it seemed so near. 93.. Maa Tsuru's aunt's worst fears were confirmed sooner than later.e.Here and there, they encountered a lone man.94 f. Wean pass here but not through there.95 The Prepositional Phrase Pairs The prepositional phrase pairs identified are four (4). Soexamples have been provided in (17)  below.
(17) a.I have been witness to mothers who cane their children into the classroom and mothers who cane their children out of the classroom and onto the streets. 96It engulfed her from head to toe.97 The principles that govern the order of antonyms in Faceless For the noun pairs identified, the analysis revealed that the principle of idiomaticity, with a total of twenty-nine (29) was more.This is followed by the principle of gender. Inestingly, although for Jones (2002), male precedes female and masculine precedes feminine as far as this principle is concerned, in Faceless, the researchers identified instances, where female precedes male or feminine precedes masculine.For the purposes of this study, this was termed non-gender.These instances were even more.There were twelve (12) instances of chronology and five (5) instances of positivity.For 87 Darko, Faceless, 114.88 Darko, Faceless, 202.89 Darko, Faceless, 204.90 Darko, Faceless, 215.91 Darko, Faceless, 138.92 Darko, Faceless, 29.93 Darko, Faceless, 98. 94 Darko, Faceless, 112.95 Darko, Faceless, 161.96 Darko, Faceless, 117.97 Darko, Faceless, 63.
the adjective pairs, the principle of positivity is high with a total of fifteen (15) and idiomaticity of eleven (11).There are five (5) cases of chronology, three (3) of gender and two (2) each for morphology and magnitude.Interestingly, there were no cases of non-gender in the adjective pairs.As shown in the table, the adverb pairs and the verb pairs are cases of idiomaticity and positivity.

Ancillary Antonymy in Faceless
As shown in Table 2, the Ancillary Antonyms in the text are twenty-three (23).Some of them have been provided in (18) below.As Jones has noted, Ancillary Antonyms are responsible for signalling a more important opposition between another pair of words, phrases, or clauses.In (18a), the acts of bowing one's head and looking straight into a face are linked to being respectful or disrespectful in the Ghanaian society.Similarly in (18b), "the child in the latter case" is linked to not being in the streets while "child in the former case" is linked to being in the streets.
(18) a.And when she did, it was with her hands behind her and her head bowed as a show of respect.Her children, nowadays, sometimes looked straight into her face and bowled out replies.b.The child in the latter case may not necessarily end up in the streets to beg in order to survive, while the child in the former case, is likely to. 98

Co-ordinated Antonymy in Faceless
As shown in Table 2, about 14% of the antonymous pairs in Faceless are Co-ordinated Antonymy.This supports Jone's position that "Coordinated Antonymy is a widespread phenomenon in language. 99ones has noted several lexico-syntactic frames that are associated with Co-ordinated Antonymy in English.These include X and Y, (either) X or Y, and (neither) X nor Y. 100  b. … he answered all her questions with either a nod or a shake of the head … 112 Jones has noted that Coordinated antonyms can be joined by punctuation alone, such as the comma.In the data, some pairs such as those in (23) were found, which in the contexts of their use, can be described as Coordinated antonymous pairs.In (23a) the punctuation mark is the comma, while in (23b) it is the question mark.
(24) a.A Blackman, a Whiteman, a Yellow man.113 b.Normal people?Street people? 114metimes the coordinated pair occurred in two sentences without any co-ordinate conjunction as exemplified in (25) below.
(25) a. Do him this!Do him that! 115.In the dream, she simply entered the toilet with a roof and did her thing.No war as it was many times when she had to do it in real life. 116.The first two teeth in my mouth grew here.The last two would come off here. 117 is Y' In the data, a frame which could be labelled as 'X is Y' was identified.In (26), "boy thieves" has been linked to "girl thieves" with the verb be (26) How many boy thieves out there are actually girl thieves? 118 then Y' A pair with the frame 'X then Y' as shown in (27) below was also found.( 27) Odarley, Fofo's friend, was fast asleep when she felt the tap on her arm; gently at first, then harshly.119

Comparative Antonymy in Faceless
Comparative antonyms occur in sentences or constructions in which the things, events or situations described are evaluated as either being different or similar in some way.The researchers identified six (6) of these in the data and some are illustrated by the examples in (28).This involves the use of comparative morphology which takes the form of words like "as" and "like".The lexico-grammatical frames are: 'X as Y' (28a) and (28b), and 'Both like X and Y' (28c).In (28a) the comparative antonymy has been used to show one strategy that street children use in their activities.Here, it is learnt that some girls dress as boys, that is, disguise themselves in order to engage in robbery.(28c) is interesting in the sense that the two noun phrase pairs have been used metaphorically in the context.In order for her to be accepted by the hairdresser, Kabria had to tell lies about her husband and betray him.Judas Iscariot is known to have betrayed Jesus.He is therefore considered a betrayer.Archimedes is also known to be a great mathematician, engineer and inventor, a genius.(28) a.A girl at the market who tried to rob someone while dressed as a boy… 120 b.Kabria arrived at Agbobloshie around ten o'clock the following morning and parked creamy at the same place as the previous day. 121c.Kabia took the seat, feeling both like Judas Iscariot and Archimedes rolled in one. 122

Negated Antonymy in Faceless
In the novel, nine (9) Negated Antonymous pairs were identified.Two (2) have the frame 'X but Y' (29a &b) while one (1) has the frame 'X but not Y' (29c

Transitional Antonymy in Faceless
According to Jones, Transitional Antonymy is "the co-occurrence of an antonymous pair within a framework that expresses a movement or change from one location or state to another.Frameworks that are typically associated with this function are 'from X to Y', 'turning X into Y' and 'X gives way to Y'.In the text, five (5) frameworks were identified 'from X to Y', 'from X until Y' and 'X turn Y'.The examples have been provided below.'from X to Y' (29) a. Slowly, she began her descent from dream to reality. 124. … because from dawn to dusk 125 'from X until Y' (30) From her infancy, bearing every cost of her upbringing until she reached puberty.126 'X turn Y' (31) a. Hertepid disposition turned to one of alarm.127 b. TheInspector's cynical grin turned to a wry smile.128 Discourse functions and some of the themes in the novel It has already been indicated that the story is about a menace, "streetism" and the plight of street children in Ghana.Amma Darko narrates the story of children left to roam on the streets and highlights some of the bad things that can happen to street children who take their fate into their own hands.Thus, the themes include poverty, child abuse and neglect, rape and defilement, child prostitution, single parenthood and child labour. Thi section of the paper shows how some of the discourse functions identified in the text highlight some of the themes in the novel.
A critical study of the antonymous pairs shows that, among others, they are used to highlight some of the themes.On page 25, Amma Darko not only uses a Coordinated Antonymous Pair to introduce her protagonist Fofo, but also the menace of street children in Ghana.In (33a), "a boy and a girl" has been used to "signal inclusiveness or exhaustiveness of scale." 129Again in the words of Murphy et al., "the distinction between the two opposites are neutralised" such that the author creates an image of a group of people all boys and girls of about Fofo's age who have been abandoned on the streets. 130In (33b), Amma Darko uses the antonymous pair to show the plight of the street children, where boys and girls sleep together.(32) a.A boy and a girl of about Fofo's age and making a home on the streets of Accra like her … b.Boys and girls slept together.In (34a) below, Amma Darko uses a Coordinated Antonymous Pair to indicate that some of the street children become thieves and one wonders if they were "born bad" or "made bad".Again, she uses a 123 Darko, Faceless, 215. 124Darko, Faceless, 27. 125 Darko, Faceless, 34. 126Darko, Faceless, 76. 127 Darko, Faceless, 44. 128Darko, Faceless, 110. 129Jones, Antonymy: A Corpus-Based Approach, 61. 130Murphy et al., "Discourse Functions of Antonymy: A Cross-Linguistic Investigation of Swedish and English." Distinguished Antonymous pair to indicate that the phenomenon makes girls behave as boys (34b) and that some of the "boy thieves" actually turn out to be "girl thieves" (34c).( 33) a.These thieves; I don't know if they are born bad or made bad. 131.A girl at the market who tried to rob someone while dressed as a boy… c.How many boy thieves out there are actually girl thieves? 132 the novel, Darko uses some of the antonymous pairs to highlight the nature of the phenomenon, some of the problems the street children encounter, and some causes and effects of the phenomenon.Darko uses a Distinguished Antonymous pair to show one of the causes of streetism -"… coupled with the consequences of the acts of some irresponsible parents which results in children leaving home." 133Again, she uses a Distinguished Antonymous pair to show that most children are from broken homes.Darko's Naa Yomo states, "I can attest to marriages, the proper ones and the cohabitations." 134Maa Tsuru was not a married woman but was cohabiting.Darko uses another Distinguished Antonymous pair to point out that some fathers do not stay around to be with their mothers -"Many of them had fathers who didn't stay around to be with them and their mothers." 135arko uses an Ancillary Antonymous pair to highlight a marital problem where fathers leave their wives for other women and the wives also find other men. 136She states "after Odarley's father left her for another woman and she too found another man." Again, Darko uses an Ancillary Antonymous Pair to highlight the point that sometimes the phenomenon of street children occurs because of the behaviour of some mothers.Here, she uses the adverb phrase pairs "into" and "out of" in the sentence to express this.She indicates this on page 117 where she states "I have been witness to mothers who cane their children into the classroom and mothers who cane their children out of the classroom and onto the streets."She uses a Distinguished Antonymous Pair to highlight situations where some fathers who earn adequate incomes refuse to care for their children because they no longer love their mothers.-"We came across situations where fathers were earning adequate incomes but were refusing to care for their children because they no longer loved their mothers." 137arko uses a Distinguished Antonymous Pair to highlight some of the wishes or dreams of the street children.She goes to the extent of showing Fofo's dream and compares it with what she does in real life. 138This dream or wish is a need, a decent place of convenience that street children do not have -"In the dream, she simply entered the toilet with a roof and did her thing.No war as it was many times when she had to do it in real life."Again, Darko uses a Distinguished Antonymous Pair to highlight a perception people have about street people.The perception is that street people are not considered normal people.She poses the question to distinguish street people from normal people -"Normal people?Street people?" 139 Darko again uses a Distinguished Antonymous Pair to highlight another cause of the phenomenon by drawing attention to the plight of barren women.In the text, it is read that they are frowned upon in society, while single mothers are preferred.(34)  I know its length and its breadth and its width.
It engulfed her from head to toe.

NP-NP 25) 66
Agbogbloshie's human and vehicular traffic was heavy as usual.

ADJP-ADJP 26)
But where just minutes ago, there had been a free flow of human traffic, a sea of spectators had now invaded a spot along it.The child with no mother and whose father and his lineage had just been cursed.

74) 123
We must not create a new problem in the process of trying to solve an old one.

75) 125
Something that had never happened before, was going to happen.

VP-VP 76) 125
Mum always got home before Dad.

NP-NP 77) 125
The children are used to dad always coming home to meet mum.

NP-NP 78) 125
But what if dad wants something that mum has always been doing for him?NP-NP 79) 125 Who would pretend to be mum and do it for dad?NP-NP The fun balanced the discomforts.

NP-NP 89) 137
There are some poor parents we encountered, who in spite of their situation were not allowing their children out into the streets.

90) 137
The child in the latter case may not necessarily end up in the streets to beg in order to survive, while the child in the former case, is likely to.Harriet Appiah Kyeremeh is an Assistant Lecturer at the Department of English, Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology (KNUST).She holds an MPhil in English from KNUST, a BA in Linguistics with Spanish from the University of Ghana and a Diploma in Education from the University of Education, Winneba.She is particularly interested in how conceptual metaphor and other cognitive devices reflect in the language of people from different cultural backgrounds.

ADJP
Murphy et al.have also explained that they are like Coordinated Antonymies in neutralising the differences between the two antonyms.Unlike Coordinated Antonymy, Murphy et al. have noted that Extreme Antonymy unites the extremes of a scale.51Thetypicalframeworks,according to Jones are: the very X and the very Y, either too X or too Y and deeply X and deeply Y.In (7a) young and old functions are extreme antonymous pairs, while in (7b) rich and poor function as such.(7)a.It is often considered a safer and gentler form of treatment, especially valuable to the very young and the very old, being less toxic and having fewer side effects.b.No one can afford to go to law except the very rich and the very poor and it can't possibly get any worse.52

Table 1 -Nature of Antonymy pairs Nature of Antonym Pair Frequency
With whatever money they had begged for or stolen or earned the previous day. 74 something you can start doing and stop midway? 75ither took charge of it or it would gain total control of you.76d.…  distraught woman who had sprinkled charcoal ash on her head and smeared some on her arms and feet …77e.Kpkpo was desirous to retire to bed with her at night and woke up with her in the morning.78Sometimes, the VP pairs occurred in two sentences as exemplified in(12)below.(12)a.An when she did, it was with her hands behind her and her head bowed as a sign of respect.Her children, nowadays, sometimes looked straight into her face and bowled out replies.79 b.Yowinced.And then you smiled. 80aa Tsuru frowned and then smiled.81 below.The VPs or the clauses in (11a) and (11c) are conjoined with the coordinate conjunction "or" whereas those in (11b), (11d) and (11e) are conjoined with the conjunction "and".(11)a.

Discourse Functions of Antonymous Pairs in Faceless
In total, one hundred and forty-four examples were identified in the text.Table 2 below presents the raw frequencies and percentages of the discourse functions in the data.

Table 2 -Raw frequencies and percentages of the discourse functions in Faceless
Similar frames were found in Faceless.These have been discussed below.'X and Y' This was very high with about sixty-five occurrences.Some examples have been provided in (19) below.(19) a.A boy and a girl of about Fofo's age … 101 b.Fofo let out a big cry and began to kick her hands and legs wildly … 102 c.Boys and girls slept together. 103d.Is this something you can start doing and stop midway? 104e. … a distraught woman who had sprinkled charcoal ash on her head and smeared some on her arms and feet … 105 Sometimes the coordinated pair occurred in two sentences as exemplified in (20) below.
111)You winced.And then you smiled.106'BothXandY'Theresearchersalsoidentified a coordinated antonym with the frame 'Both X and Y'.The example in(21)illustrates this.Interestingly, although the coordinated antonyms pairs in (21) are nouns, softness, is an abstract noun while bone is a concrete noun.(21)Herfistbashed and banged into facial organs hitting both softness and bones.107'XorY'Anotherlexico-syntacticframeidentified in Faceless is the 'X or Y' frame as illustrated in(22).(22)a..…if they are born bad or made bad108b.Kabria wondered if that was by design or chance109c.The single unmarried mother or the childless married woman?110'EitherX or Y' Some other coordinated pairs(23)occurred in the 'Either X or Y' frame.(23)a. … you either took charge of it or it would gain total control of you.111 ).The other has the frame 'neither X nor Y' (29d).The examples have been provided in (29) below.a. Kwesi was gone, but his loner and children remained together.b.He refused to pay for her services, but would rob her of her earnings too.c.You talk a lot on the radio like you are a smart guy but you are not smart at all, are you? 123(p.215) d. … And others that were neither good nor bad.

Antonymous Pairs in Ama Darko's Faceless
Who is frowned upon in this society?The single unmarried mother or the childless married woman?The latter, … 140 she simply entered the toilet with a roof and did her thing.No war as it was many times when she had to do it in real life.
131Darko, Faceless, 71.132Darko, Faceless, 75.133Darko,Faceless, 93.134Darko, Faceless, 137.135Darko,Faceless, 130.136Darko, Faceless, 132.137Darko,Faceless, 132.138Darko,Faceless, 25.139Darko, Faceless, 130.140Darko, Faceless, 139.APPENDIX A -He gave in to her stubbornness and determination to drive creamy in its tattooed state rather than have it sprayed any other colour than cream.ADJP-VP 18) 41Fofo could have been one of the numerous screaming children, scrambling with the sheep and goats and chicken for space to play.
So what her mother could not do with her as a growing daughter, she had no option but to do with her growing daughter.Kabria arrived at Agbobloshie around ten o'clock the following morning and parked creamy at the same place as the previous day.
And when she did, it was with her hands behind her and her head bowed as a show of respect.Her children, nowadays, sometimes looked straight into her face and bowled out replies.
Dr. Esther Serwaah Afreh is a Senior Lecturer at the Kwame Nkrumah University of Science and Technology.She received her Ph.D. in Linguistics from the University of Ghana, Legon.She holds an MA in Cognitive Linguistics from the University of Brighton, UK, and an MPhil in English from the University of Cape Coast.Her research has concentrated on issues in Cognitive Semantics, that is, on conceptual content and its organisation in language.
Not the sleek-new type.The age-old type.NP-NP 120) 183Life begins here in the night and ends at dawn.VP-VP 121) 183When the rest of Accra is sleeping; that is when Sodom and Gomorrah and its real inhabitants wake up.… as the men prefer her young taut body to that of the older flabby madam.ADJP-ADJPAPPENDIX B -WORD CLASS PAIRS