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Comments: |
This entry is related to an issue that is not an isolated occurrence but comes
up often enough to have been on my mind for a while. I have to admit that i
am not yet sure what the best solution is but am making an offer here.
As we all know, in formal writing and certain types of formal speech
(openings, proclamations, etc.), in the place of what one might call more
continuous or connective verb forms the shorter and harder verb stems are
used at the end of clauses that are part of a sequence of clauses but not the
final clause in that sequence. These verb stems look/sound exactly like the
nouns derived from said verbs, but they continue to function as verbs and not
as nouns. However, when looking up a text containing such forms, they are
presented to the readers as nouns.
In such cases i think a dictionary should make its users aware that an item at
hand could be either a verb stem or a noun, to allow not only for an
appropriate understanding of the meaning (the connotations or nuances of
meaning of a given verb and the noun derived from it are not necessarily the
same), but also of the structure of the sentence (in any of the languages i
know, confusing verbs and nouns would make it impossible to get a sense of
the flow of a text).
If this database is meant to be a useful tool also for relative beginners (which
the overall approach seems to indicate) then i think we cannot assume that
users know how to discard certain information they get during a first look-up
and to perform a second lookup on the discarded items to make sure they get
all the information the dictionary offers.
Now some might think that since many clauses do appear to end in nouns -
examples: 理解, 感謝 - something like 訴え could as easily be a noun in such a
position, but i would like to suggest that there is always an unspoken form of
する implied after 音読み expressions and that therefore such clauses also end
in verbs. In fact, i don't think a Japanese sentence would be complete without
a verb (or copula) even if that may in some cases be dropped, be it for
convenience's sake of for other reasons.
It is with this in mind that i am, in an exemplary manner, suggesting here that
we expand (by and by, as time permits) such entries as 訴え, 伝え, 認め, and so
on with an additional sense that tells the reader that the item could be a
noun or a verb.
Technical note: Rene hadpreviously tole me that after a reference the full
meaning of that reference should be given, but this data entry system won't
let me do that (and i can see several reasons why: for example, there are
parentheses to indicate different senses or further references). What is the
right procedure? |