Seeing clearly: Frame Semantic, Psycholinguistic, and Cross ...

CHAPTER 5. WHAT THE DICTIONARIES SAY 208
1. a basic sense (eye) translated miru
2. a social sense like visit, translated au,
3. a sense characterized as \understand" in English and wakaru in Japanese, which can
be used for our sense recognize, but is probably more frequent in the discourse
sense,
4. a \cognition" sense translated by kangaeru `think, consider', which is usually closer
to our sense recognize or classify than to imagine,
5. a sense translated by tashikameru. The Toei dictionary uses the English guide word
ascertain, which is better because it is unambiguous, as opposed to the guide word
in the Yohan dictionary, make sure, which isambiguous between determine and
ensure.
Although both dictionaries are very small, both cover most of the basic senses of
the English word see, and both give the most common Japanese equivalents. The Yohan
is preferable, because it adds the senses experience and ensure, in addition to giving
two English translations for wakaru, one of them extremely common in ordinary discourse.
The second translation for her sense eye in the Toei is also misleading, meaning something
more like `stare at' than see. A language learner would be better o most of the time
with the Yohan dictionary; only at a fairly advanced stage would one need to consult the
Kenkyusha, except that many of the collocations listed in the Kenkyusha will be encountered
even by intermediate students. As we have noted previously in regard to other languages,
neither small dictionary distinguishes transitive from intransitive uses, which is a blessing
in disguise. Otherwise, the sense divisions given in the Yohan agree rather well with those
in the Kenkyusha.
5.7 Analysis
English-English Comparisons of Entry Structure
Table 5.2 on page 210 shows a summary of sense divisions for the four monolingual
English dictionaries we have examined. The numbers and letters in the cells refer to the
sense divisions (and, in the case of the W3NI, subdivisions) used in printing the texts in