# Dictionary 'treatment' of verbs with prep. object (Germanic)



## ThomasK

I find it so strange that synonym dictionaries do not mention *houden van *(to love) as a separate lemma, only as synonym of _*beminnen*. _I think prepositional verbs in general _[is there a name for verbs with prep. obj.?] _should be dealt with separately. Now *'houden van' *and '(zich) houden aan' are dealt with under 'houden', whereas semantically and syntactically they do not belong together, I'd say. For learners of the language it would be way clearer to have them dealt with separately. Or am I mistaken (again)?  Is there any dictionary in Germanic languages that implements that view? (Other languages with a similar problem welcome)

As a matter of fact, a dictionary based on the Rogetian principle and/ or on speech acts might be just as interesting... I notice for example that English has *to worry*, whereas most of the languages I know have no single word/ lemma to express that. Somehow I'd think I would be interesting to have something like *zich zorgen maken over *and *bezorgd zijn over *as separate lemmas, but of course, that is even more utopian, I suppose.


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## Ben Jamin

ThomasK said:


> I find it so strange that synonym dictionaries do not mention *houden van *(to love) as a separate lemma, only as synonym of _*beminnen*. _I think prepositional verbs in general _[is there a name for verbs with prep. obj.?] _should be dealt with separately. Now *'houden van' *and '(zich) houden aan' are dealt with under 'houden', whereas semantically and syntactically they do not belong together, I'd say. For learners of the language it would be way clearer to have them dealt with separately. Or am I mistaken (again)?  Is there any dictionary in Germanic languages that implements that view? (Other languages with a similar problem welcome)
> 
> As a matter of fact, a dictionary based on the Rogetian principle and/ or on speech acts might be just as interesting... I notice for example that English has *to worry*, whereas most of the languages I know have no single word/ lemma to express that. Somehow I'd think I would be interesting to have something like *zich zorgen maken over *and *bezorgd zijn over *as separate lemmas, but of course, that is even more utopian, I suppose.



If you create a dictionary with entries arranged alphabetically, then the only way to place the verbs is to put all the phrasal verbs after the main verb alone. I haveńt studied dictionaries of Germanic languages with this aspect in focus, but I think most of them mark the phrasal verbs as separate lexems, albeit often clustered in a common section “to spare place”.
Many Germanic languages (including German and the Scandinavian languages) have verbs with prepositions attached firmly at the beginning of the verb. These are clearly treated as separate lexems.
Concerning the word to worry: many non Germanic languages have a corresponding lexem in one word: Polish ‘martwić się’ (się is a reflexive pronoun, not a preposition), Russian ‘беспокоиться’, Spanish ‘preocuparse’, Italian ‘preoccuparsi’ and ‘angustiare’, Greek ‘ανησυχώ’.


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## ThomasK

Thanks, BJ!

- Indeed, they do, but I think a distinction ought to be made between real phrasal verbs (abrechnen) and the prep.-obj. verbs (rechnen mit); I'd like to see them treated separately
- in fact I think for learners of a foreign language it might be very attractive to list verbs based on the root (-rechnen) as well... 
- as for the separate lexem: I wonder if it were not possible to have a Rogetian concept-based dictionary or a speech-act based dictionary. Have you ever heard of that ?


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## Ben Jamin

I only know Roget's Thesaurus and other Thesauri of the English language. I also own a couple of bilingual dictionaries where entries are grouped according to the area of usage (for instance family relations, food, work, construction, etc), but they are not truly arranged etter the genuine Rogetian principle.

I have, however, been thinking about a new concept of creating dictionaries. One should establish a system of codes (consisting of digits and letter) corresponding to various concepts. In many languages one word is used to denote many different concepts, and many words are used to denote the same concept. Some concepts exist in some languages, but not in others. That is why it is so difficult to make good bilingual dictionaries, and almost impossible to make good multilingual dictionaries. The reason is that the concepts in natural languages are too poorly structured. In this way we could make a reference system not only independent of natural languages, but better than any natural language.
This could see like this:
AXC-1245 English: know   French: savoir German: wissen Definition: to posses the knowledge of
AXC-1246 English: know   French: connaître  German: kennen Definition: to be able to recognize/identify an object


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## ThomasK

That is about what I mean - but what do AXC and the figures refer to? I think very Rogetian, though Roget is based on English. But don't _savoir _and _connaître _belong to the same hypernym ? 

I'd be willing to cooperate! I do want a root verb dictionary too ;-), so that learners can use them to deduce the meaning of new words in (quite) some cases...


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## berndf

ThomasK said:


> I find it so strange that synonym dictionaries do not mention *houden van *(to love) as a separate lemma...


Who says they aren't separate lemmata? Click Click.


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## ThomasK

Thanks for the information, but it is never done in paper dictionaries. I just had a look at Van Dale, one of the newest, and it is not the case. And at synoniemen.net it is not even a lemma, only one of the synonyms...


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## Ben Jamin

ThomasK said:


> That is about what I mean - but what do AXC and the figures refer to? I think very Rogetian, though Roget is based on English. But don't _savoir _and _connaître _belong to the same hypernym ?
> 
> I'd be willing to cooperate! I do want a root verb dictionary too ;-), so that learners can use them to deduce the meaning of new words in (quite) some cases...



The code composed of letters and digits means actually nothing, it’s just an illustration of how a code could be made. 
I did not reflect if _connaître_ and _savoir_ belong to the same hypernym, but this is of secondary importance as they are actually separate lexems and should not be confused in correct French. This question can be important when someone actually starts constructing the code system. This system can’t be a copy of the Rogetian system, as it has to incorporate many categories of words which are not in the system.
By the way, I’m curious if a coding system of this kind has been used by any of the on line translators. Do you know anything about this?


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## Ben Jamin

I think that a hypernym must be an existing word, not only a concept. I actually don’t know any French word that could function as a hypernym for both _connaître_ and _savoir_. Do you?


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## LilianaB

What do you mean by that a hypernym must be an existing word not only a concept? Could you kindly illustrate it. Please do not give me French examples if you can, because I don't know this language, all most at all.


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## ThomasK

LilianaB said:


> What do you mean by that a hypernym must be an existing word not only a concept? Could you kindly illustrate it. Please do not give me French examples if you can, because I don't know this language, all most at all.



Hypernym : 'see' is a hypernym for 'spot', 'notice', ...
HYpernym: 'seat' is ... for 'chair', 'armchair', etc. 

BTW: I can' think of a hypernym in French for _connaître/ savoir_. Must it be an existing word. Not so sure, I'd think that Latin could constitute some kind of a 'bridge', because lots of people will know 'percept´-'. But I cannot think of aa book in which those principles have been applied. 
_
I suppose I am mixing up (...) some things, because for some years now I have been trying  to find some basic words/ concepts  (for Dutc´, maybe other languages) that can help learners to make more progress - and make sure they really know the basics. And this question has to do with my attempt at reducing the number of words to be known at a basic or intermediate level...

_


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## berndf

ThomasK said:


> That is about what I mean - but what do AXC and the figures refer to? I think very Rogetian, though Roget is based on English. But don't _savoir _and _connaître _belong to the same hypernym ?


I agree with Benjamin:
English: yes (_to know_)
German: no (_wissen _and _kennen _don't have a hypernym).
French: no (_savoir _and _connaître _don't have a hypernym).
Scots: no (_to know _and _to ken_ don't have a hypernym).

Hypernyms must exist in the language in question, not just in any language. It is not sufficient that they exists as "thinkable" categories, they must actually be used as such. I would like to argue a little bit Worfian here: As a German speaker I would never ever have thought that the verbs _wissen _and _kennen _would have had anything in common, if I hadn't known that English used the same word for both; and when I speak/write English I still think of the two uses of _to know_ as unrelated concepts which are incidentally expressed by the same sequence of sounds/letters.


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## LilianaB

Thank you, Thomas. I know what a hypernym is, I was just wondering how it can be a concept rather than a word? I think it is always a word which encompasses a broader range of meanings. I agree with Berndf that a hypernym has to be a word in a particular language: words always belong to a particular language, in fact.


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## Ben Jamin

The discussion appears to have sidetracked and stopped. Is there anybody interested in the idea of concept-organized dictionaries?


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## ThomasK

I had forgotten about something: onomasiology. Onomasiology studies how (universal) concepts are realized in languages. Let's join an onomasiological movement, Ben Jamin! ;-)

Just by the way: 
- in my Flemish dialect we do not have _to worry _as a single verb either, but we simply refer to the underlying feeling and say we are *'ongerust' *(un-rest, not sure, not assured) about something
- I found out that the English _worry _is etymologically linked with *wurgen in Dutch*, which means 'to strangle' -- which seems to suggest that the 'active' human _worry _is only secondary with respect to _worry _as causing worries.


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