Abstract
THE PROBLEM OF DEFINITION AND EXEMPLIFICATION IN TURKISH DICTIONARIES
This research work aims first to investigate the definition methods of words in monolingual Turkish dictionaries and then to evaluate examples given to meanings. In evaluation works on dictionaries, it has numerously been detected that headword definitions sometimes lack sufficiency, while sometimes extensive encyclopedic information is given. Especially, lack of sufficiency and existence of mistakes originating from formation of definitions of terms by non-professionals and other similar problems have been detected. Besides, it has been concluded that in Turkish dictionaries not a common system is applied in arrangement of meanings, some incoordination and disarray exist in them and that the Turkish Dictionary of the Turkish Language Institution includes idioms, phrases and proverbs, while others do not. This evaluation will be presented in the article together with examples.
The second part of the research work evaluates exemplification of words. In order to understand the meanings given in dictionaries better, necessarily, words should be exemplified with the aid of example sentence(s). However, dictionaries do not have coordination in this sphere, too. Exemplification in the Turkish Dictionary of the Turkish Language Institution (Türk Dil Kurumu) has mostly been implemented through examples sectioned from various literary works, while desk-based examples from can be seen in the mentioned dictionary rarely. This limitation results with that many words cannot be exemplified, since the whole vocabulary of any language has yet not been able to reflect in literary works. Example sentences chosen from newspapers, magazines, textbooks, scientific works, daily language and even social media would solve this problem. Another matter is differences between dictionaries in selection of example sentences. The TLI Turkish Dictionary presents single example for each meaning, while the Turkish Dictionary with Examples by the Ministry of Education, for instance, sometimes presents even six examples for a meaning. The problem of exemplification in dictionaries can be solved through collected work consisting of scanning of works by hundreds of writers, materials from written media and virtual world.
Keywords
Definition, Exemplification, Matter of term, Turkish dictionary
