User:DCDuring/How I write definitions
[This IS NOT about Translingual taxonomic definitions. It IS about English language definitions of English-language terms. I intend to write it from the "bottom" up, starting with guides for particular parts of speech, starting with the primary "open" classes: nouns, verbs, and adjectives, then open-class adverbs and proverbs. Only then will I even attempt to address grammatical terms, eg prepositions, closed class adverbs, conjunctions, pronouns]
Nouns[edit]
A typical definition for a noun to be defined ("definiendum") is a noun phrase of the form hypernym + differentia.
- dog: a carnivorous mammal
The hypernym is the name of a class which contains the definiendum. There are almost always a number of possible classes that contain it, but only a small number are reasonable candidates.
- dog: animal, mammal; ?member, ?kind, ?quadruped, ?pet, ?carnivore; *thing, *creature, *entity
A differentia is a word, phrase or clause that serves to specify how the definiendum differs from other members of the hypernym.