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lexicology 2 module.doc
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11. Define the types of dictionaries.

There are many different types of English dictionaries. First of all they may all be roughly divided into two groups — encyclopaedic and linguistic.

The two groups of reference books differ essentially in the choice of items included and in the sort of information given about them. Linguistic dictionaries are wоrd-books, their subject’ matter is lexical units and their linguistic properties such as pronunciation, meaning, peculiarities of use, etc. The encyclopaedic dictionaries, the biggest of which are sometimes called simply encyclopaedias are thing-books, that give information about the extra-linguistic world, they deal with concepts (objects and phenomena), their relations to other objects and phenomena, etc.

For dictionaries in which the words and their definitions belong to the same language the term unilingual or explanatory is used, whereas bilingual or translation dictionaries are those that explain words by giving their equivalents in another language. Multilingual or polyglot dictionaries are not numerous, they serve chiefly the purpose of comparing synonyms and terminology in various languages. Both bilingual and unilingual dictionaries can be general and special. General dictionaries represent the vocabulary as a whole with a degree of completeness depending upon the scope and bulk of the book in question. The group includes the thirteen volumes of “The Oxford English Dictionary” alongside with any miniature pocket dictionary. Some general dictionaries may have very specific aims and still be considered general due to their coverage. They include, for instance, frequency dictionaries, i.e. lists of words, each of which is followed by a record of its frequency of occurrence in one or several sets of reading matter. A rhyming dictionary is also a general dictionary, though arranged in inverse order, and so is a thesaurus in spite of its unusual arrangement. General dictionaries are contrasted to special dictionaries whose stated aim is to cover only a certain specific part of the vocabulary.

Special dictionaries may be further subdivided depending on whether the words are chosen according to the sphere of human activity in which they are used (technical dictionaries), the type of the units themselves (e. g. phraseological dictionaries) or the relationships existing between them (e. g. dictionaries of synonyms).

Dictionaries may be classified into linguistic and non-linguistic. The latter are dictionaries giving information on all branches of knowledge, the encyclopaedias. They deal not with words, but with facts and concepts. The ideographic type of dictionary is in a way the converse of the usual type: the purpose of the latter is to explain the meaning when the word is given.

12. Compare the synonyms and antonyms.

Antonyms are words to indicate the same category of parts of speech which have contrasting meanings. If synonyms from whole, often numerous groups, antonyms appear in pairs. Yet, this is not quite true in reality. Most antonyms are adjectives which is only natural because qualitative characteristics are easily compared and contrasted. Verbs take the second place, verbal pairs – to lose-to find, to lose-to win. Nouns are not rich in antonyms, friend-enemy, heaven-earth. Antonymic adverbs can be subdivided a) adverbs derived from adjectives, e.g. warmly-coldly; b) adverbs proper, now-then, here-there, ever-never.

Antonyms may be defined as two or rarely more words of the same language belonging to the same part-of-speech, identical in style and nearly identical in distribution, associated and used together so that their denotative meanings render contrary or contradictory notions.

Lexical units may also be classified by semantic similarity and semantic contrasts. The terms generally used to denote these two types of semantic relatedness synonymy and antonymy. Synonymy is often understood as semantic equivalence. It can exist between words and word-groups, word-groups and sentences, sentences and sentences. Synonyms may be found in different parts of speech and both among notional and function words. They are phonemically different words but similar in their denotational meaning. Synonyms are traditionally described as words different in sound-form but identical or similar in meaning. Synonyms are one of the language’s most important expressive means, they add precision to each detail of description and show how the correct choice of a word from a group of synonyms may colour the certain whole text. The principal function of synonyms is to represent the same phenomenon in different aspects, shades and variations. More often synonyms are used for stylistic purposes. After some detailed analysis synonyms are frequently said to be vocabulary’s colours, tints and hues. In terms of componential analysis synonyms may be defined as words with the same denotation or the same denotative component (ideographic synonyms), but differing in connotations or in connotative components (stylistic reference) or ideographic –stylistic synonyms.

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