| Abstract [eng] |
The article analyses and compares names of trees drawn from two English explanatory dictionaries: the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARY and the MACMILLAN ENGLISH DICTIONARY FOR ADVANCED LEARNER. Furthermore, it aims to determine what features of a particular world fragment are reflected in the meanings of the analysed words. The investigation of the collected data has revealed that descriptive definitions are the most widespread for names of trees. It has been noticed that the OXFORD ENGLISH DICTIONARYprovides more detailed scientific definitions than the MACMILLAN ENGLISH DICTIONARY FOR ADVANCED LEARNER. Meanings of some words are defined with the help of synonymous words or by an explicit descriptive definition and a synonym. Nevertheless, a few definitions in both dictionaries can be criticised for using the term being defined as part of its own definition. The research has proved that almost all the analysed definitions have the traditional structure ‘per genus proximum et differentiam specificam’ (through genus and a difference), where the ‘genus’ is the hypernym ‘tree’ and the ‘differentiam specificam’ part of the definitions analysed includes components of meaning referring to the size of the tree, descriptions of its leaves, branches, flowers, bark, wood/timber, stems, trunks, roots, fruit, seeds, nuts, berries, thorns, the location where the tree grows, and what the tree or its part is used for. Summing up the results of the research, it is possible to state that unification of the definitions of the words belonging to the same semantic field of trees is not always maintained. |
