词典释义研究的沿革与发展趋向

Evolution and Trends of the Researches on Lexicographical Definitions

意义理论的研究表明:语词的意义涉及到语言的系统关系,以及语言与人、语言与外部世界之间的各种关系,意义的表象是多维的。西方语言学界在释义的研究方面都是围绕着意义理论而不断推陈出新的。本文将通过探讨生成语法、语义分解理论、原型理论和相应时期词典释义实践的演变过程,来说明语言学理论与词典释义的关系及其发展趋向。

Lexicographical definitions consist in the decomposition and representation of lexical meanings. As language is a complex system, the expression and understanding of a word meaning involves many different relations of the word to its users and to the external world. So the representation of the meaning is characterized by a multidimensional aspect. How should these relations be represented? And how should the multidimensional aspect of meanings be demonstrated? Western linguists and lexicographers have conducted many scientific investigations about this. The studies show that the single-level conceptual definitions based on 搒ufficient and necessary conditions?have evident deficiency in the representation of meanings. The Semantic Decomposition Theory regards the lexical units as the concepts that can be decomposed into simple or atomic ideas. The simple ideas can be expressed by semantic markers or distinguishers, controlled by various selectional constraints. A proposal has been put forward, by the Generative Grammar, that the purpose of linguistic researches is to explain and describe the linguistic intuition of native speakers, and that not only the deep structure, but also the transformational component and the phonological component govern the semantic interpretation. Jackendoff抯 Conceptual Structure has improved the methods of decomposition by means of the formalization of the structure and the standardization of the decompositional rules, so that the definitional structure tends to be described in a formal and standard way, and that the multidimensional formulation becomes visible. Practical lexicographers have introduced these theories of semantic interpretation in accordance with the characteristics of dictionaries into lexicographic definition, and tried to represent the meaning and uses of words in the sense and pragmatic relation of language, based upon the restrictive rules of semantic, pragmatic and morphological features. Theoretical lexicographers have adopted theses theories in an all-round way and radically changed the structure and the characteristics of definitions in conventional dictionaries, so that the lexicographical definition inclines to take the shape of formalization with a set of restrictive rules and operational criteria. Thus the multidimensional aspect of meanings will be represented more iconically in the structure of definition, including detailed and invariant semantic features, possible or impossible grammatical patterns, syntactic combinations and collocational structures. These theoretical approaches to definitions will predict a developing trend of active dictionaries.