From semantic networks to dictionary structures

Abstract

This paper investigates how thoughts become words, and to what degree semantic relationships between words can be captured in dictionaries. It analyses differences in the segmentation of the world by words, realisations of notions in parts of speech, and the lin- guistic appearance of event factors on the basis of five ethnic languages (Hungarian, Polish, English, French and German) as well as the planned language Esperanto. Semantic compo- sitionality as reflected in word derivation and formation contributes to the way the world is conceptualized in a given language. Traditional alphabetically ordered dictionaries contain less information for entries than data bases, although to know a word means to know the system of its semantic relations, the contexts, where it can be used. Finally, the structure of trilingual thematic dictionaries that include more of the semantic relations necessary for language acquisition is presented.