From the experience of Portuguese teachers and trainers of educators and teachers of the 1st and 2nd cycles of Basic Education in the area of ​​Linguistics and Didactics of the Mother Language, and after scientific and pedagogical research, we realized that the approach used to study the units that make up the Portuguese Lexicon and the semantic and morphological relations established between them conditions the acquisition of scientifically correct knowledge and the development of language skills and citizenship competencies.

The presentation of these contents in official and regulatory documents does not always reflect the scientific advances verified in the field of Educational Linguistics. It was this perspective that led us to consider the various dimensions involved in the study of the lexicon and the relations between lexical units. The starting point was the concept of word family and its indefinite borders with the concepts of semantic field and lexical field, given that it deals with contents explicitly addressed in the 1st cycle of Basic Education (Buescu et al., 2015), which often raises doubts among teachers and students. Thus, in Choupina, Baptista & Costa (2013), we have articulated some problems related to the concept of word family and the association that can be established with the semantic relations between words, searching - in a dialogue between linguistics, applied linguistics and history of the language - to combine information of a synchronous and diachronic nature and to reflect on the implications that those contributions can bring to the teaching of Portuguese.

With the publication of the Portuguese Curricular Goals (Buescu et al., 2012) and subsequent Program and Goals (Buescu et al., 2015), there was a greater need to specify the concepts of antonyms, which have in the structuring of lexical information, as far as the Mental Lexicon is concerned, both for the role they play in the development of world conceptions and of behaviors and/or thoughts on citizenship.

Buescu et al. (2015). Programas e Metas Curriculares de Português do Ensino Básico. Lisboa: MEC/DGE

Buescu et al. (2012). Metas Curriculares de Português do Ensino Básico. Lisboa: MEC/DGE

Choupina, C.; Baptista, A.; Costa, J. A. (2013). Palavras em rede: diálogos entre linguística aplicada e história da língua no ensino e na aprendizagem do português. In Madalena Teixeira et al. (orgs.) Ensinar e Aprender Português num Mundo Plural. Santarém: Escola Superior de Educação e UFU. Pp. 701-746. ISBN: 978-972-9434-05-1.