| Multifunctionality or heterosemy of lexemes, especially verb-noun heterosemy,resulted from conversion in analytic languages like Modern English and Modern Chinese has been the most controversial topic since the 20 th century and a kind of battleground over which various theoretical camps have fought over the years.However, relevant studies were conducted mostly in morphology and syntax, and it is far from a complete understanding of heterosemy, which is closely related to morphology, syntax and especially lexicology(lexicography). So far, there has been no systematic empirical study concerning verb-noun heterosemy in Modern English lexicon at langue. Thus this thesis is intended to study the current status of verb-noun heterosemy in Modern English, based on Two-Level Word Class Categorization Model and Oxford Advanced Learner’s English Dictionary(8th Edition). In this thesis, the representation of verb-noun heterosemy mainly includes its number, proportion and entry setting character.It is found that verb-noun heterosemy is very common in Modern English,occupying 5.8% of the lexemes in the dictionary, which is approaching the percentage of verb lexemes in it, that among 2670 verb-noun lexemes, 2285 belong to verb-noun heterosemies in its strict sense and 385 are actually homonyms, and that 52.12% of the2285 lexemes have self-reference senses represented in a diversified manner, which is conducive to satisfying English learners’ encoding needs.Through the investigation of the microstructure and representation of verb-noun heterosemy in Modern English, this thesis not only aims to find out the current situation of verb-noun heterosemy in Modern English, but also to deepen the study of word class categorization in analytic languages, which will deepen the study of word class categorization in Modern Chinese and shed light on the representation of verb-noun heterosemy in Modern Chinese lexicography. |
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