VALENCY PRIMITIVES AS DICTIONARY REALISATIONS

The purpose of this paper is to present valency primitives as the smallest semantic-expressional units, in particular for dictionary explanations. It is first necessary to distinguish between semantemes as irreducible units of lexical meaning which have no realisations of their own and primitives (or in this paper valency primitives) as the semantic-expressional units whose core content or meanings and semantic components can be realised. Valency or transitivity semantemes, as both categorical semantemes and integral/universal components of lexical meaning, can be realised through a particular kind of valency primitive, which in this case function as semantic-syntactic equivalents - usually verbs, as the characteristic or basic semantic representatives of a specific valency group, e.g. bivati, cutiti; govoriti/reci, misliti, gledati, hoteti, zeleti; delovati, deti, vzeti, igrati (se); spreminjati (se); iti, hoditi. Subcategorical semantemes as actant semantemes or possible actant roles - including with regard to (in) definiteness, causality, and passive or active voice - are unrealised or implied in verbs such as Dezuje, Sije, Cese (se), Pluzi ceste, Stric cevljari, On rad jadra, and lexically realised as valent complements in Dez gre/pada, Sonce sije, Cese (si) lase, Odstranjuje sneg s cest s plugom / Cisti ceste s plugom, or modifying complements in / Soncno/je, Stric dela /kot cevljar/, On rad pluje /z jadril), while the figurative use usually provides for so-called individual semantemes, such as Cvetje dezuje, Oci sijejo, Njegovo vedenje je soncno, Natakar je jadral med mizami / Oblak je jadral po nebu and so on. By identifying the relevant semantic-syntactical features, including valency semantemes, that are common to most of the meanings of a particular verb, we arrive at the prevailing syntactic meaning of the verb in question, which represents its most usual and frequent semantic and structural-syntactic use.