Lexical Semantics An Introduction Boris Iomdin Russian Language
Lexical Semantics. An Introduction Boris Iomdin Russian Language Institute, Russian Academy of Sciences iomdin@ruslang. ru
Lecture 8. Plan Passive and active (production) dictionaries Existing production dictionaries Russian Production Dictionary Principles of RPD Scheme of the lexical entry in RPD Polysemy blocks Encyclopaedic information A sample entry: rana ‘wound’ The scientific value of RPD
Passive vs. active dictionaries Passive dictionaries: more traditional, used to help readers understand any given text, have to be very large (up to 450 000 words in English dictionaries) Active (productive) dictionaries: used to help speakers use words correctly. Contain considerably fewer words (the active vocabulary of educated speakers has around 10 000 words) but much more linguistic information Ideally, the linguistic information in a productive dictionary should correspond to the language competence of exemplary speakers
Existing production dictionaries Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current English Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English Maurice Davau, Marcel Cohen, Maurice Lallemand. Le dictionnaire du français vivant Raoul Mortier. Dictionnaire Quillet de la langue française (l’art d’écrire et de bien rédiger) Le Petit Robert de la langue française Groβwörterbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache Purely practical, very little underlying linguistic theory
Longman dictionary Developed in agreement with the grammar (University Grammar of English, in part written by the same authors) Based on a large text corpus (≈300 000 words) Includes a defining vocabulary (2000 most frequent and simple English words). Only these words used in the explications, and only in self-explanatory meanings. However, no syntactic restrictions Includes “language notes” (mostly on pragmatics) Hundreds of illustrations (pictures)
Russian Production Dictionary No production dictionaries of Russian published as yet The first one: a project led by Jurij Apresjan since 2006 The prospect (general layout and sample entries) in print The wordlist currently contains 10 000 words
Principles of the dictionary Simplicity and clarity of formal languages Explicitness of all information Unification (consistency) Individualization
Formal language Definitions should be (1) complete, non-redundant and not tautological, but (2) formulated so that average users with no linguistic background could easily understand them In complicated cases, a trade-off between scientific accuracy and accessibility is to be achieved
Explicit information If a word has a linguistically relevant feature, it has to be explicitly described in the lexical entry, even if it might be deduced from other information present in the entry
Unification If the lexical entry of a word X contains information L, the same information should be present in the lexical entry of the word Y, if Y belongs to the same lexicographic type and has the same feature
Individualization The consistency principle in description of words of the same type is implemented until the lexical material itself does not resist the unification Individual features of every word have higher priority than its typical features
Individualization: example Almost all Russian verbs of iterative locomotion have two meanings: (1) ‘occupation, activity’: Oni xodili <begali, …> po dvoru ‘They were walking <running, …> in the backyard’ (2) ‘action, bidirectional movement’: Oni kazhdyj den’ xodili <begali, …> za pochtoj ‘Every day they went <ran, …> for mail’
Individualization: example Consistency principle: all verbs of this type have these two meanings However: brodit’ ‘to wander’ does not include the idea of purposeful movement (one of the main components of the bidirectional meaning): *On kazhdyj den’ brodil za xlebom ‘Every day, he wandered to buy bread’ Hence: the second meaning is not ascribed to brodit’
System vs. usage The language system includes all lexical entities that could in principle be constructed according to the rules of the language, e. g. words formed by analogy Usage includes only lexical unities that are indeed used by the speakers of the language
System vs. usage Three kinds of phenomena are linguistically interesting: 1) Those present both in system and in usage 2) Those present in system but not in usage 3) Those already present in usage but not yet in system All words from (1) are included
System vs. usage Words absent in usage generally not included Example: X–zhdy ‘X times’ adverbs formed from numerals The system includes odnazhdy ‘once’, dvazhdy ‘twice’, trizhdy ‘thrice’, chetyrezhdy ‘four times’, pjatizhdy ‘five times’, shestizhdy ‘six times’, semizhdy ‘once’, vos’mizhdy ‘eight times’, …. The usage, however, has only the first four Hence, the rest should not be in the dictionary
System vs. usage Words of the third type: mistakes or innovations? Open question
Scheme of the lexical entry Entry (name of the lexeme) Grammatic information Typical examples Explication (and comments) Syntactic information Collocations Illustrations from literary texts Synonyms, analogues, conversives, antonyms, derivates (when available)
Polysemy blocks: VYJTI 1. 1. ‘on foot, to move outside’: vyjti iz komnaty ‘to go out of a room’ 1. 2 ‘to move outside’: sudno vyshlo iz bukhty ‘the ship sailed out of the bay’ 1. 3 ‘to set out, depart’: polk vyxodit zavtra ‘the regiment moves out tomorrow’ 2 ‘to cease to be located somewhere’: vyjti iz tjur’my ‘to come out of prison’ …
Polysemy blocks: VYJTI … 3. 1 ‘to cease to be part a or member’: vyjti iz komissii ‘to leave a committee’ 3. 2 ‘to cease to be in a given state’: vyjti iz povinovenija ‘to get out of control’ 3. 3 ‘to cease to do’: vyjti iz boja ‘to leave the field of battle’ 4 ‘to come to an end, run out’: xleb ves’ vyshel ‘all bread was used up’ …
Polysemy blocks: VYJTI … 5. 1 ‘to come, appear’: vyjti na rabotu ‘to come to work’ 5. 2 ‘to appear’: vyjti na aekrany ‘to be released, go to air’ 5. 3 ‘to receive access’: vyjti na zamministra ‘to obtain access to the deputy ministry’ 6 ‘to enter into matrimony’: vyjti zamuzh ‘to get married (of a woman)’ …
Polysemy blocks: VYJTI … 7. 1 ‘to turn into, become’: vyjti v generaly ‘to become a general’ 7. 2 ‘to have the makings of’: iz nego vyjdet general ‘he has the makings of a general’ 7. 3 ‘to begin to exist’: iz aetoj zatei nichego ne vyjdet ‘nothing will come of this venture’ 7. 4 ‘to turn out to be’: vstrecha vyshla interesnoj ‘the meeting turned out to be interesting’ …
Polysemy blocks: VYJTI … 8. 1 ‘to result, occur’: vyshla neprijatnost’ ‘some trouble resulted’ 8. 2 ‘to turn out’: vyxodit, vy pravy ‘it turns out that you are right’ 9 ‘to face a certain direction’: okna vyxodjat v sad ‘the windows look out over the garden’
Encyclopaedic information karta 2. 1 ‘playing card’ Value: tuz ‘ace’, korol’ ‘king’, dama ‘queen’, valet ‘jack’ [court cards]; desjatka ‘ten’, devjatka ‘nine’, …, trojka ‘three’, dvojka ‘two’ [plain cards]; kozyr’ ‘trump’; dzhoker ‘joker’ Suits: bubny ‘diamonds’, piki ‘spades’, trefy ‘clubs’, chervi ‘hearts’ Occupations: igra v karty ‘playing cards’, pas’jans ‘solitaire’, gadanie na kartax ‘card reading’, kartochnye fokysy ‘card tricks’
Language specific expressions figurnye karty – court cards – Bilder – les hautes cartes koloda kart – pack of cards – Kartenspiel – jeu de cartes tasovat’ (karty) – shuffle – mischen – battre <mêler> sdavat’ (karty) – deal – geben – distribuer <servir> snimat (karty) – cut – abheben – couper …
Sample entry RANA ‘wound’, by M. Ja. Glovinskaja Definition: ‘an object on the body part P 2 of a living being P 1 which is a result of rather serious injury to the skin and tissues of P 2 caused by an outer force or object P 3, usually in the form of a hole, a cut or a tear, which is bleeding or has bled’.
Genus proximum A wound is conceived of above all as a material object Similar to: bruises, shiners, sores Distinct from: dislocations, sprainings, fractures which cannot be thought of as objects
Type of injury A wound is an injury to the skin AND tissues of a body part Similar to: sores Distinct from: scratches (injuries to the skin), shiners (injuries to the tissues), sprains (injuries to the ligaments), and fractures (injuries to the bones)
Attending circumstances A wound usually implies bleeding at the moment of observation or prior to it In this respect it is different even from sores, let alone all other injuries
Place of injury A wound may be located anywhere on the human body Similar to: sores, scratches, shiners Distinct from: contusions which involve above all the brain Slang: mouse ‘a sore under the eye’; Russian fonar’ lit. ‘lantern’, fingal
Cause of injury A wound is always a result of impact of some outer force, even when it is received accidentally Similar to: contusions Distinct from: sprains, strains, and twists which may result from excessive tension of some body part
Form of injury The form of a wound is not particularly relevant Similar to: sores and shiners Distinct from: cuts and scratches which have elongated forms
Collocations Mass of lexically constrained material To present it in a unified format, collocations are ordered by semantic classes which reflect certain pragmatic aspects of the causation, existence, development and cessation of wounds
Collocations (a) APPEARANCE & CAUSATION: green wound; receive <sustain> a wound, suffer a wound; inflict a wound, rare make a wound; (b) INSTRUMENT OR IMMEDIATE CAUSE: a bullet <knife, bayonet, shrapnel> wound; a stab <gunshot, operation> wound; (c) CIRCUMSTANCES: a battle wound; (d) INJURED BODY PART: an abdominal <stomach> wound; a wound in the shoulder <in the head>; a flesh wound;
Collocations (e) FORM, TYPE & CHARACTER: lacerated <punctured, incised> wound, jagged wound, perforating wound; open <gaping> wound, contused wound; wound of entry <of exit>; (f) DEGREE: deep <superficial> wound; slight <light, minor> wound; dangerous <cruel, grievous, serious> wound; mortal <fatal> wound; (g) STATE: painful <agonizing> wound; cured <uncured> wound;
Collocations (h) PROCESSES IN THE WOUND: the wound is healing <healing up, healing over>, the wound is overcast, the wound closed <cicatrized, repaired>; the wound is bleeding <festering, is infected>, the wound opened, the wound still rankles; (i) TREATMENT: cleanse <wash> the wound; reopen the wound; nurse the wound; dress a wound, bind (up) a wound, cure <heal> the wounds; neglect the wound; (j) CONSEQUENCE FOR THE WOUNDED: recover from the wounds, die from the wounds.
Scientific value of the RPD Apart from the practical tasks, an active dictionary has two scientific functions: It is an integral part of theoretical description of the language Once completed, it can serve as feedback for the correction of the original linguistic theory
Next lecture Synonymy and its description. New Explanatory Dictionary of Russian Synonyms, its principles and the structure of lexical entries.
- Slides: 38