Delexical Structures Contrastively: A Common Trap for Non-Native Speakers

• Main Author: Marjeta Vrbinc
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Znanstvena založba Filozofske fakultete Univerze v Ljubljani (Ljubljana University Press, Faculty of Arts) 2004-12-01
• Series: ELOPE
• Subjects: delexical structures; encoding; dictionary treatment
• Online Access: https://revije.ff.uni-lj.si/elope/article/view/3294

This article deals with delexical structures and in particular with the problems non-native speakers are faced with when encoding. First, it gives reasons why it is necessary to study the structures and then it discusses the delexical structures in English (monolingual context). The second part of the article focuses on the bilingual aspect, i.e. the translation of English delexical structures into Slovene. Some problems concerning the bilingual context are presented, especially as regards aspect and the difference between the translation of English delexical structures in isolation (e.g. in a dictionary) and within the context. The last part of the article concentrates on the dictionary treatment of delexical structures and provides some examples taken from the latest editions of the leading EFL monolingual dictionaries.