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Figure 2.4 Semantic Roles Norvig Lakoff
5. Dictionary Definitions
The most common way when people want to find out the meaning of a word is by looking up in the dictionary. Dictionaries present the meanings or
definitions of a word using other words or terms. Dictionaries are the easiest way to look up the meaning of a word. The meanings from dictionaries are accepted as
the authoritative sources because of the widespread usage of the dictionaries Mihalicek Wilson, 2011. However, it is a fact that the meanings in the
dictionaries are not always fixed and can change over the time. One meaning in one edition of dictionary can be different in previous or later several editions of
the same dictionary. It happens because in fact, dictionaries are “open-ended, and
are continually being adapted to new requirements by the addition of new lexical entries” Leech, 1981, p. 204. The new lexical entries develop through the
human spoken and written communication which is continuous from time to time. Nida 1975 describes that most dictionaries provide the word meaning
clues and terms to help the readers find the definition of a word. Thus, dictionaries Participants:
A agent: active actor or causer of an action
S source: initially has the patient
R recipient: receives the patient
P patient: object acted upon or affected by the agent
I instrument: used to transport the patient
Settings:
O
origin: location where patient started out
D destination: location where patient ends up
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are very useful though there are some weaknesses related to the organization consistency and the presentation of relevant data. Two examples of weaknesses of
meaning in the dictionaries mentioned by Nida are the meanings are stated merely by the substitution meanings i.e. by synonyms rather than by mentioning the
different features, and the lists of synonym and antonym are not clear because a dictionary does not provide all related meanings needed to build the related
meanings. Despite the weaknesses, dictionaries can be a real help to derive meanings because they cover:
the semantic areas involved, list typical contrasts, provide illustrative contexts, indicate different syntactic uses, give historical data suggestive
of relations between meanings, frequently list idiomatic and figurative uses, and may note such temporal features as “obsolescent”, “archaic”,
“neologism”, etc Nida, 1975, p. 172.
Carter 2000 agrees that most people use dictionaries and they have them as an investment becaus
e dictionaries can be used for a long time; “the dictionary is a trusted and respected repository of facts about a language” p. 151. He also
adds that the important thing about dictionaries is “the use of either restricted defining vocabularies or at least a concerted effort to write clear and unambiguous
definitions ” p. 152. Despite the weaknesses of dictionaries, their functions to list
the words and provide the words information phonological, syntactic, and semantic are important for language learners, people in general or the study of
meaning Leech, 1981.
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B. Theoretical Framework
This research addresses three research problems. The first and the second problems deal with semantics and polysemy. The important aspect of
using a language in communication is knowing the meaning of the language that is obtained from understanding the meaning of words or combination of word
meanings in phrases or sentences. The study in linguistics field that focuses on the meaning is semantics. Determining the meanings of words can be complicated
because it happens that one word can have several meanings and one meaning can be defined by several words. The main focus of this study is on the polysemy, that
a single word can serve several meanings. This study will discuss the meaning in a word level, which is a
polysemous word. Therefore, the theory of lexical semantics is applied. Lexical semantics is a study of word meanings particularly content words Cruse, 2006.
However, compositional semantics is also necessary because polysemous words will have different meanings when they are combined in a phrase and put in
different context of sentences. In analyzing the sentences, the theory from Leech 1981 is used. A sentence consists of predicate and arguments where their
combination of meanings will determine the overall meaning of the sentence. This analysis will also determine the meanings of the word take which has a role as a
predicate. The main theory used in this study is polysemy. The definition of
polysemy that a word has multiple related meanings has been discussed in polysemy definition part in the sub-heading of polysemy discussion. This research
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