Definitions of trees in English and Lithuanian explanatory dictionaries

• Main Author: Lukošienė, Renata
• Format: Article in Journal/Newspaper
• Language: Lithuanian; English
• Published: 2017
• Subjects: explanatory dictionaries; lexicographic definition; names of trees; DML
• Online Access: http://su.lvb.lt/SU:ELABAPDB26580358&prefLang=en_US

The present research focuses on the comparative study of definitions of trees from English and Lithuanian explanatory dictionaries. The Macmillan English Dictionary for Advanced Learners (MED) and Dabartinės lietuvių kalbos žodynas (the Dictionary of Modern Lithuanian, hereinafter DML) have been chosen for the analysis. The scope of the research is 203 definitions denoting names of trees (89 examples from MED and 114 examples from DML). The research aims to determine the most common types of definitions preferred by the dictionaries, to ascertain what features of a particular world fragment are reflected in the meanings of the analysed words, to compare and contrast English and Lithuanian definitions of trees. Descriptive definitions turned out to be the prevailing pattern in both dictionaries. Other patterns of definitions (synonymic and the combination of descriptive and synonymic definitions) are rarely used to define names of trees in both dictionaries.