释“义”之辩

Rethink the“ Word Meaning” Revealed in a Dictionary Definition

词典“释义”就是解释词语的意义,这似乎已成大众共识。然而这一共识却面临着两大挑战:一是,孤立的词语没有意义,只有语义潜势;二是,语义潜势的激活有赖于语义关系的锚定,关系定则语义出,反之则不然。故,释“义”不应只关注语义内容,还应重视词汇语义网络之间的“关系”。

It seems to have been wide accepted that the main task of a dictionary is to define the meaning of words. However, this popular idea is faced with two challenges: one is that words have no meaning but rather meaning potentials;the other is that the activation of a meaning potential depends on word relations. In this sense, what a dictionary defines includes not only lexical content (meaning) of a word but its lexical relations with other words.