Article

Name: Semantics of verbs through the lens of “passive” and “active” dictionaries

Authors: Anastasia I. Tkach

Institute of Philology of the Siberian Branch of the Russian Academy of Sciences, Novosibirsk, Russian Federation

In the section Linguistics

Abstract:

The paper compares the meanings of the verbs zhit’ (to live), delat’ (to do), and idti (to go) as presented in dictionaries of different types. The dictionaries used include three types: (1) the traditional “passive” dictionaries by V. I. Dal’ and T. F. Efremova, (2) the “active” dictionary by Yu. D. Apresyan, and (3) the associative databases RAS (Russian Associative Dictionary) and SIBAS (Russian Regional Associative Database of Siberia and the Far East). The first and second types of dictionaries are based on textual materials. The third type reflects associative-verbal networks modeled on the data of free mass associative experiments conducted in the USSR and Russia in the 1990s (RAS) and 2000s (SIBAS). The assumptions are corroborated that the mental meaning of a word differs from its linguistic meaning and that associative thesauri reflect the language consciousness of an average Russian speaker. Thus, the order of meanings of the verb zhit’ given in the first and second types of dictionaries does not match the “ranks” of these meanings in the native speakers’ language consciousness depicted in RAS and SIBAS. Dialogic responses, traces of precedent phenomena, and visual images present in RAD and SIBAS supplement the image of active linguistic consciousness processing the speaker’s experience of interacting with reality. Conversely, the first and second types of dictionaries provide more information about different meanings and contexts that exclude ambiguity of interpretation of meanings. It is concluded that a comprehensive study of linguistic personality requires the complementary use of different types of dictionaries.

Keywords: associative profile dynamics, mental meaning, active dictionary, associative dictionary

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