Mubarik, Shaheen2018-04-092018-04-092018https://escholar.umt.edu.pk/handle/123456789/2928Supervised by: Dr. Nadia AnwarThis study investigates the lexical and conceptual compression/decompression of the Arabic language brought about by means of antonymic construals in the selected category 'Signs of Allah's Magnanimity and Omnipotence' in the Quran. It aims to have an insight into the usage based and context dependent functions of antonymy in creating compression and decompression of language. A new theoretical approach, i.e., Cross Categorical Construal Approach (CCCA) is introduced based on the dynamic construal approach and cross categorical approach to study the Quranic antonyms. The data were gathered by using homogeneous purposive sampling technique. Eighty four verses containing antonymic pairs were selected as sample for the study out of the population of 203 verses. The data were analyzed to answer four research questions: (A) To what extent the context affects language compression and decompression that take place in the selected category, i.e. 'Signs of Allah's Magnanimity and Omnipotence' through antonymic construals? (B) Do the members of antonymic pairs in the selected category belong to the same word class? (C) Does the difference in the word class of antonymic pairs in the selected category affects language compression or decompression? (D) To what extent the gradability or non gradability of the antonymic pairs in the selected category is triggered by the context? The study finally concluded that the context plays a central role to cause language compression and decompression through the antonymic pairs in the Quran. Moreover, the delivery of the opposite concepts through two opposite lexemes is the focus in the Quran and their syntactic category is not necessarily the same for being termed as antonyms. Further, it is also observed that the discrepancy in the word class of the opposite pairs does not hinder the process of language compression and decompression and gradability/non gradability of the pairs is also context dependent. This research activity is replicable for future studiesenAntonymic construals, language compression, language decompressionContext dependent, cross categorical, gradables, non gradablesM.PhilThesis