The Way to Define the Polysemic Words in a Chinese English Dictionary An Approach Based on the Generative Lexicon
This paper has carried out a study of the semantic extensions of the verb ai 'love' in Chinese from a sub lexical perspective within the theoretical framework of Generative Lexicon. In particular, we have proposed a sublexical definition of the verb ai 'love' for a Chinese English dictionary as a consequence of a lexicological analysis. Our results have indicated that taking the advantage of this semantic representation model, dictionary users are able to choose semantic structure based on the type of object that ai 'love' combined. This definition model can help foreign language learner to understand and use the verb thoroughly and flexibly. Keywords lexicographic model; Generative Lexicon; lexical combination