Description of nouns with parametric semantics in an active explanatory dictionary: The lexicographic experiment

Abstract

This article provides an overview of an active type dictionaries in Ukrainian and foreign lexicography. It examines the peculiarities of the structural organization of dictionary articles, presenting of words in a paradigmatic relationship with registry units, displaying the typical syntagmatic properties of units, and case forms. Relying on a wide range of texts in the Ukrainian language corps, the paper describes the words with parametric semantics dalekist’ (farness) and blyz’kist’ (closeness) with respect to the anthropocentric approach. The applied lexicographic experiment is a practical part of studying the topic of compiling an active type explanatory dictionary of the Ukrainian language. This lexicographic experiment was verified on the texts of the corps of semantic paradigms of words presented in the dictionaries of the 20th—21st centuries. It offers checking procedures and vocabulary and text filters. In contrast to the published explanatory dictionaries, the modeled description of language units provides a more complete picture about the functioning of the examined words in texts of different genres, their semantic potential, and stylistics. Keywords: anthropocentric lexicography, active type of dictionary, parametric noun, dictionary entry, text corpus.