Development of an English-Japanese dictionary that shows the use of articles and the plural -s: Based on Nouny Nouns and Verby Nouns

2023 Fiscal Year Final Research Report

• Project/Area Number: 18K18510
• Research Category: Grant-in-Aid for Challenging Research (Exploratory)
• Allocation Type: Multi-year Fund
• Review Section: Medium-sized Section 2:Literature, linguistics, and related fields
• Research Institution: Nagoya City University
• Principal Investigator: HIKI Mitsuru 名古屋市立大学, 大学院人間文化研究科, 教授 (10238280)
• Project Period (FY): 2018-06-29 – 2024-03-31
• Keywords: 英和辞典 / 名詞的名詞 / 動詞的名詞 / 冠詞 / 複数形

Outline of Final Research Achievements

This study demonstrates the usefulness of assuming a new distinction between Nouny Nouns (nN)and Verbal Nouns (vN) as a superordinate concept of the distinction between Countable Nouns ([C]) and Uncountable Nouns ([U]) that is widely used in the dictionary but that often has little explanatory power in accounting for noun form usage. Nouny Nouns have the usual function of referring to an object in the broadest sense, and their noun form depends on the countability of the noun in the given context (The company needs regulations). Verby Nouns, in contrast, do not have the referential function, but rather they describe a noun in the sentence by a verb meaning together with the main verb, and their noun form is always a bare form ([N]) (The company needs regulation), which will make judgment of noun forms simpler and easier. The nN/vN distinction also reveals that prepositions and verbs function differently depending on which noun type (nN or vN) they take as their object.

Free Research Field

応用言語学

Academic Significance and Societal Importance of the Research Achievements

名詞の分類に「名詞的名詞[nN])」と「動詞的名詞[vN])」という新しい区分を想定することにより、従来の可算名詞[C]か不可算名詞[U]かの区分からだけでは説明できなかった数々の事例に一貫した説明を可能にした。英和辞典でnNとvNを区別してそれぞれの語義と例文をのせることにより、冠詞と複数形語尾の使い方が格段にわかりやすくなる可能性を示した。また、nNとvNの区別は名詞だけでなく、前置詞や動詞の理解にも貢献する概念であることを示した。（同じ前置詞・動詞でも、nNを目的語にとる前置詞・動詞とvNを目的語にとる前置詞・動詞では、名詞の形が異なるだけでなく、前置詞・動詞の意味・用法が異なる。）