20. Some basic problems of dictionary compiling.

It divided into two problems: that of the number of the words, and that of the list of words to be included in a dictionary. As for the number of words there exist dictionaries of different volumes, EG: there are pocket dictionaries with 25 or less thousand words. Among the largest dictionaries there is Webster’s dictionary, it include about 600000 words. The most burning issues of lexicography are connected with the selection of head-words, the arrangement and contents of the vocabulary entry, the principles of sense definitions and the semantic and functional classification of words. In the first place it is the problem of how far a general descriptive dictionary, whether unilingual or bilingual, should admit the historical element.. For the purpose of a dictionary, which must not be too bulky, selection between scientific and technical terms is also a very important task. It is a debatable point whether a unilingual explanatory dictionary should strive to cover all the words of the language, including neologisms, nonce-words, slang, etc.; When the problem of selection is settled, there is the question as to which of the selected units have the right to a separate entry and which are to be included under one common head-word. These are, in other words, the questions of separateness and sameness of words. The arrangement of the vocabulary entry presents many problems, of which the most important are the differentiation and the sequence of various meanings of a polysemantic word. A historical dictionary (the Oxford Dictionary, for instance) is primarily concerned with the development of the English vocabulary. It arranges various senses chronologically, first comes the etymology, then the earliest meanings marked by the label obs. — obsolete. A descriptive dictionary dealing with current usage has to face its own specific problems. It has to apply a structural point of view and give precedence to the most important meanings. But how is the most important meaning determined upon? So far each compiler was guided by his own personal preference. An objective procedure would be to obtain data of statistical counts. But counting the frequency of different meanings of the same word is far more difficult than counting the frequency of its forms. Many dictionaries indicate the different stylistic levels to which the words belong: colloquial, technical, poetical, rhetorical, archaic, familiar, vulgar or slang, and their expressive colouring: emphatic, ironical, This is important, because a mere definition does not show these data. A third group of lexicographic problems is the problem of definitions in a unilingual dictionary. The explanation of meaning may be achieved by a group of synonyms which together give a fairly general idea; but one synonym is never sufficient for the purpose, because no absolute synonyms exist. Definitions serve the purpose much better. These are of two main types. If they are only concerned with words as speech material, the definition is called linguistic. If they are concerned with things for which the words are names, they are termed encyclopaedic. American dictionaries are for the most part traditionally encyclopaedic, which accounts for so much attention paid to graphic illustration. The meaning of the word may be also explained by examples, i.e. contextually One more problem is the problem of whether all entries should be defined or whether it is possible to have the so-called “run-ons” for derivative words in which the root-form is readily recognised (such as absolutely or resolutely). In fact, whereas resolutely may be conveniently given as a -ly run-on after resolute, there is a meaning problem for absolutely. One must take into consideration that in colloquial speech absolutely means ‘quite so’, ‘yes’ which cannot be deduced from the meaning of the corresponding adjective.

metonym [me'tɔnəmɪ]. The association is based upon subtle psychological links between different objects and phenomena, sometimes traced and identified with much difficult The foot of a bed the foot of a mountain the arms of an arm-ch The leg of a bed hand of a clock factory hands

Broadening (or Generalisation) of Meaning. Narrowing (or Specialisation) of Meaning

Monomorphiс or root-words consist of only one root-morpheme, e.g. small, dog, make, give, etc. Pоlуmоrphiс words according to the number of root-morphemes are classified into two subgroups: polyradical words, i.e. words which consist of two or more roots. 1) polyradical words which consist of two or more roots with no affixational morphemes, e.g. book-stand, eye-ball, lamp-shade, etc. and 2) words which contain at least two roots and one or more affixational morphemes, e.g. safety-pin, wedding-pie, class-consciousness, light-mindedness, pen-holder, etc. Monoradical words fall into two subtypes: radical-suffixal words, acceptable, acceptability, blackish, etc.; 2)radical-prefixal words, e.g. outdo, rearrange, unbutton, etc. and 3) prefixo-radical-suffixal, disagreeable, misinterpretation, etc.. Complete segmentability Conditional morphemic segmentability characterises words whose segmentation into the constituent morphemes is doubtful for semantic reasons. do not rise to the full status of morphemes for semantic reasons and that is why a special term is applied to them in linguistic literature: such morphemes are called pseudo-morphemes or quasi-morphemes.(retain, detain, contain, receive, deceiv, perceive) Defective morphemic segmentability is the property of words whose component morphemes seldom or never recur in other words the morphemes cran-, goose-, straw- are unique morphemes.

metaphor. A new meaning appears as a result of associating two objects (phenomena, qualities, etc.) due to their external similarity, things can resemble one another. The noun eye, for instance, has for one of its meanings "hole in the end of a needle" branch a special field of science or art, the neck of a bottle, onion (= head), saucers (= eyes),

headmaster- segmentable, polymorphic, polyradical, complete segm Compounding

precious- segm, polymormonoradical, bound root is not relevant ot word-formation analysis

lock-out-compound derived

retain-cond segm, re lacks lexical meaning reopen-re differ meaning

Cunin’s class: 1) one-summit unit (at large, by the way); 2) phr units with the struct of coordinate or subordinate word groups (safe&sound, with high&main; to pull smb’s leg, burn one’s finger, a free hand); 3) structures with imbodded clause – a lexem and a clause idioms (ships that passed in the night); 4) clause-idioms (when pigs fly); 5) nominative-communicative (to break the ice, to pass the Rubicon); 6) communicative type (sentence idioms), proverbs and sayings (if u run after 2 hairs u will catch none); 7) interjectional phrases (by George, oh God!)

20