Thesaurus: what it is.

Increasingly in numerous projects, books, brochures, online resources you can find the concept of "Thesaurus".Like a mysterious phenomenon, it scares her unexplored, because much easier to say 'Dictionary', rather than use a strange definition.

Thesaurus: what is it?How is it different from an ordinary dictionary?Let's try to examine these issues in more detail and affordable.

interpretation of the term

initially considered the concept of the thesaurus in terms of vocabulary, representing the vocabulary of language with examples of use in text.

Ozhegov treats like a dictionary thesaurus specific language reflecting the language in full, while Yefremov examines this phenomenon from the perspective of a systematic set of data in a particular field of knowledge.

most specific definition used in philology, it is understood as a component of vocabulary thesaurus type, where all the meanings of the words are related semantic relations between themselves and reflect the key concepts in the ratio of a particular subject area.

As we can see, it is difficult to answer the question: "Thesaurus: what is it?"definitely.For a more narrow term study will consider the origins, types and relationships in the dictionary of lexical units of this type.

History of

founding father of thesauruses considered British physicist Roger, it was he who in 1852 codified the language of English, to distribute it to groups.In addition, each group was represented by the name of the concept, and then walked its synonyms in certain parts of speech, lists of related items, as well as references to the names of the other categories.The idea of ​​such a classification was very valuable because Dictionary was considered the natural language lexicon describes the fullest.At the same time it could be used as a quick search of important concepts.Since the first thesaurus and still occur regularly transformation of this type of vocabulary that is used in many fields of knowledge and are very popular around the world.In this study the theme: "Thesaurus: what is it?" Important in many schools.

To date, thesaurus remain the most popular way to describe the knowledge in any field necessary for effective human perception.

relationship of words in the thesaurus

most common ratios are considered to be a classic thesaurus:

  1. Synonymy - a phenomenon in which words are linked one part of speech, similar in lexical value.For example: Power-fatherland, brigade-squad, red - red etc.
  2. Antonimija - link one part of speech of words with opposite lexical meaning.For example: silence - roar, gentle - rough .
  3. spook (seppuku) - key relationships in order to describe nouns.Hyperon has a broad lexical meaning, expresses a generic, general name for a class (set) objects, objects, namely, its properties and characteristics.Hyponymy has a narrow meaning, it refers to the subject (features, properties) as an element of a particular set or class.To ensure that these relations have become clear, we give a simple example.Word beast tiger interconnected, with a common name - beast - a spook in relation to the tetralogy tiger.
  4. Meronimiya (partonimiya) - ratio of nouns are formed on the basis of "part - whole".As an example, consider the words aircraft landing gear , window .In this case, the common name of transport - Holon (whole name) and its component parts - meronimy.
  5. investigation (the relationship between the verbs).For example, the words come and go associated process and its consequence (result).
  6. reason (as is permissible only for verbs).Here is an example of such a relationship, take the word: sick - skip .In this case, the cause can be traced - skip because there were health problems.

What is a thesaurus, see the following example.

bed - sleeping facilities.

[Hyperons]: furniture
[Meron]: House
[synonymous with] bench, bunk.

This is a classic example of a thesaurus of the Russian language, however, all dictionaries of this type are built on this principle.

functions thesaurus

thesaurus carries significant social, communication, research and other functions.He is

:

  • source of expertise in a wide or a narrow subject area, the method of ordering, terms to describe the subject area;
  • search tool in the information flow;
  • manual analysis documentation tool in the search engines;
  • tool for automatic indexing complex texts.

Types of thesauri dictionaries

Diversity requires not only consider the question: "Thesaurus: what is it?", But also pay attention to the species.This will help us to better grasp the characteristics of this type of dictionaries.

  1. dictionary on separate branches of knowledge - philological, pedagogical, philosophical and others. Thesauruses.A list of technical terms with an indication of the possible links between them.
  2. Information Retrieval (IPT) - used as a tool for automatic or manual retrieval.The Institute was founded about a hundred specialized thesauri that meet state standards.Of the possible semantic relationships between the concepts they use three: of generic, synonyms and associative (all others).
  3. Thesauruses specific language.For example, WordNet - a famous English thesaurus, created for the detailed characterization of the vocabulary and conceptual apparatus.
  4. Multilingual (universal) - allow to find words related to each other in different languages.
  5. There are custom thesauri, putting the problem of selective ordering of terms in a certain area of ​​expertise that is most appropriate for the new domains.

Conclusion We hope that able and accessible language to explain what a thesaurus.Through examples easy to understand how it differs from other dictionaries.We also highlighted the issue of information retrieval thesauri, which are widely used information system to quickly search and organize millions of items.