LEXICOGRAPHIC TREATMENT OF GRAMMATICAL WORDS: THEORETICAL DISCUSSION AND DICTIONARY ENTRIES ANALYSIS

Abstract

This paper is inserted in a research project that has as an objective the preparation
of theoretical and methodological bases for a Monolingual dictionary of Spanish as L2 for native
speakers of Portuguese. The semantic comment is one of the biggest challenges of lexicography,
as much in terms of formulation of defining paraphrases as with regard to its understanding on
the user's part. The objective of this paper is to evaluate the quality of the defining paraphrases of
some categories of the grammatical words on semasiological monolingual dictionaries of
portuguese and spanish. As methodology we will use the distinction between metalanguage of
sign and metalanguage of content, the possibility of submiting the defining paraphrases to
exercises of permutation, as well as their elucidative degree. We believe that the explanatories
paraphrases for the grammatical words are of partial usefulness for the user. Therefore, we
consider that is necessary to look for new models of definition for this kind of signs. Working
with these two languages (portuguese and spanish) is justified due to the possibility of doing a
parallel analysis that permits to understand the problem in the object language and in the native
language of the potential user.