"A dichotomy is any splitting of a whole into exactly two non-overlapping parts.
In other words, it is a partition of a whole (or a set) into two parts (subsets) that are:
- mutually exclusive : nothing can belong simultaneously to both parts, and
- jointly exhaustive : everything must belong to one part or the other.
The two parts thus formed are complements. In logic, the partitions are opposites if there exists a proposition such that it holds over one and not the other."
"In lexical semantics, opposites are words that lie in an inherently incompatible binary relationship as in the opposite pairs male : female, long : short, up : down, and precede : follow. The notion of incompatibility here refers to fact that one word in an opposite pair entails that it is not the other pair member. For example, something that is long entails that it is not short. It is referred to as a 'binary' relationship because there are two members in a set of opposites. The relationship between opposites is known as opposition. A member of a pair of opposites can generally be determined by the question What is the opposite of X ?"
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