I wrote this article about the relation between the self and the environment, where behavior is the attunement between the two sides. In linguistics, modes of behavior are caught in verbs. So as an outcome of this theory, I made this table below that simply shows the opposites of common verbs.
| Self adaptive | Environment influencing |
| Reading | Writing |
| Listening | Telling |
| Watching | Showing |
| Taking | Giving |
| Catching | Throwing |
| Executing | Commanding |
| Submitting | Dominating |
| Receiving | Bringing |
| Escaping | Hunting |
| Following | Leading |
Conclusions
I have to admit, I’m quite happy with this extensive list of verbs. A lot of the verbs fitted in the framework, and the once that didn’t could be explained quite easily (see below). It seems quite a logical list, but that makes me appreciate it. By going through the list, you might see the behavioral modes which you prefer in the left or right column. It also seems that they are quite related to introversion/extraversion.
The verbs which didn’t fit
I have to admit, not all the verbs could fit within this table because they had no clear adaptive/influencing opposites. The nicest ones that didn’t fit were kissing, shaking, hugging, loving, as they were non-adaptive but also non-influencing. It’s just a mutual action were both parts kiss. If it was one-sided, then you use -verb- by (like loved by) but that is not really a verb. Either way, I think it’s nice to find the mutual acceptance of friendship/love in the meaning of the verbs.
But there were more verbs which didn’t fit. Some of the verbs didn’t fit because they weren’t directly person-person relations. For example, running, floating, sitting, flowing, or flying have no real opposite verbs. This might be because they are more behavioral modes (although in a physical environment) that have no dyadic component. Furthermore, there are some temporal verbs, like coming-going, taking off-landing, sleeping-waking, which don’t have this adaptive/influencing relationship either
