A Study On Taxonomic-Hierarchical Property Of The Semantic System Of Chinese Vocabulary And Its Implementation

The problem of the systematic property of vocabulary is important to lexicology studies. It has been discussed and studied for a long time, since the foundation of Chinese lexicology, and now it is widely accepted that vocabulary is a system.However, the vocabulary system is a huge and polyhedral system. The study of vocabulary system should be started from analyzing the meanings of vocabulary, because the meaning is the chief part of a word and vocabulary. People have woken up to the systematic property of the meanings of vocabulary, and some useful exploration has been made, theoretically and practically. But the theories and practice ought to be combined closely. This thesis explores the properties of the semantic system of vocabulary from the perspective of the inner-structure of word meaning, the key relationships and formation mechanism of the system, and how to carry it out.This thesis holds that the whole meanings of any language's vocabulary is an organic being, it is one of the subsystems of vocabulary system. The semantic system of vocabulary is made up of its basic elements—sememes (senses of words), and the mechanism composing the system are the relationships of sememes. However, not all the relationships are key relationships of the system. The whole relationships of sememes make the meanings of vocabulary as a reticular structure, in which the words and sememes cannot be orderly organized. The chief property of semantic system of vocabulary is not reticular but taxonomic and hierarchical.On the basis of analysis and contrast, it is found that the taxonomic-hierarchical property of semantic system of vocabulary is fundamentally linked to the inner-structure of word meanings. The conceptual meaning is the core of word meaning, it is universal to all the words and senses, and also the base of senses relationships. The orientation and the hierarchical property of the conceptual meanings of vocabulary fundamentally result in the taxonomic-hierarchical property of semantic system of vocabulary.There are three types of key relationships of the taxonomic-hierarchical system of vocabulary meanings: approximate synonymy as basic relationship, paratactic taxonomy as horizontal relationship, and inclusive hyponymy as vertical relationship, which composing senses clusters, senses groups and senses branches respectively. The senses clusters are basic units of the system. In a common plane, different senses clusters, senses groups and senses branches make the taxonomic relationships to each other respectively. In a certain senses branch, the relationship between the senses of the upper-layer and under-layer is hyponymy. Therefore, the semantic system of vocabulary is an orderly structure with taxonomy and hyponymy.The author proposed that the taxonomic-hierarchical system of vocabulary meanings should be carried out in some way. On the basis of thesauruses like TongYiCi CiLin, we tried to search out the method for compiling some dictionary to display the system. That is undoubtedly meaningful to the lexicology studies.