ON TERMINOLOGY OF TYPES OF CHINESE DICTIONARIES

Abstract

The paper is devoted to the study of different Chinese terms that denote types of dictionaries/reference books in Chinese. The English word dictionary has several Chinese equivalents, including the archaic term 字书 (zìshū, character book) and modern terms 字典 (zìdiăn, character dictionary), 词典 (cídiăn, word dictionary, or simply dictionary), and 辞典 (cídiăn, lexicon), and the more general term 辞书 (císhū, lexicographical works). Depending on the kind of linguistic units that are selected as its entries, Chinese - foreign dictionaries can be a character dictionary, a word dictionary, or a dictionary of characters and words. A Chinese lexeme can be a monosyllabic morpheme in the form of a single character like 眼 (yǎn, eye), 看 (kàn, look), 不 (bù, no; not) and 了 (le), or a multi-syllabic morpheme consisting of two or more characters, like 葡萄 (pútao, grape) and 巧克力 (qiǎokèlì, chocolate). Unlike conventional dictionaries in which multi-syllabic morphemes are treated as sub-entries, the dictionary of Chinese lexemes 辞位 (cíwèi) that serves the needs of teaching Chinese as a foreign language, treats them on an equal footing as single characters. The sub-entries of 辞位 (cíwèi) dictionary correspond to English words and are composed of a head character or head lexeme plus another character or lexeme. For instance, the sub-entries under 眼 (yǎn, eye) are 眼 光 (yǎnguāng, vision), 眼睛 (yǎnjīng, eye), etc.; and the sub-entries under 葡萄 (pútao, grape) are 葡萄干 (pútaogān, raisin), 葡萄酒 (pútaojiǔ, wine), 葡萄糖 (pútaotang, glucose) and 葡萄牙 (pútaoyá, Portugal).