Thesaurus is a dictionary with advancedopportunities. The word "thesaurus" entered our lives relatively recently. It has a foreign origin, and the ear of a Russian-speaking person is perceived as unusual. To some, it still seems ridiculous and incomprehensible, and even now one can sometimes hear the question of what “tuzuarus” is. And someone has long been accustomed to it. Let's try to figure out what it is, where it came from and why it is needed.
The etymology of the word "thesaurus"
Это слово имеет греческое происхождение и literally translated as "treasure". Initially, the thesaurus meant an ordinary dictionary, supplemented by semantic relations, determined by the grouping of words and divided into headings. The consonance of the word with the common names of dinosaur species became the basis for many memes, logos, pictures, where the thesaurus appears as a lizard reading a book or wearing glasses. Now we can say that the dinosaur has become a symbol of the dictionary.
From the history of the dictionary
Впервые он был издан в 1852 году в Англии.It was later reissued in 1962. The dictionary was published under the editorship of P. M. Roget and contained 1040 headings, with 240 thousand words distributed over them. Monolingual dictionaries are very close to thesauruses, for example, Ozhegov's dictionary, which gives expressions of semantic parameters of each of almost hundreds of thousands of words. In the 70s. last century, gained popularity information retrieval thesaurus. This is a special type of dictionaries, where lexical units - descriptors are highlighted.
Descriptors
What does thesaurus with descriptors mean?What is it and what are they for? With their help, you can automatically search for any documentary information. Each word in such a dictionary has a synonymous descriptor. In addition, generic and associative relations are indicated. For example, the Information Retrieval Thesaurus on Informatics, published in the USSR in 1973, provides for a dictionary entry for each descriptor, which contains synonyms, generic, associative descriptors. It helps better associative orientation. In an automated information search, you can find documents in which, in addition to the query descriptor, the index also contains semantically related words. A thesaurus is a source of information that allows you to select specific associative relations specific to a particular subject area. For example, a disease is a pathogen, a device is a measurable unit. Thus, the user has the opportunity to receive information not only about the morphology, meaning, etymology of the word, but also about the area of its application, about the phenomena associated with it, about specific terminology. Thesaurus is a dictionary whose task is to provide the most complete and comprehensive information.
Thesaurus in Philology
The meaning of the word "thesaurus" in the extended sensemeans a complete description of the entire system of knowledge about the surrounding reality, which is possessed by an individual information carrier or a group of carriers. This carrier performs the functions of a receiver for additional information. The initial thesaurus determines the capabilities of the receiver in obtaining semantic information. This concept is considered not only by philologists. It is interesting and specialists in other areas. For example, it is considered by psychologists. In addition, it is of interest to those who develop systems equipped with artificial intelligence. In sociology and the theory of communication relationships, the properties of thesauri for individuals and groups are considered, which provide the possibility of mutual understanding based on a commonality of thesauri.
Thesaurus in daily life
The term has entered different scientific contexts.It is most applicable to those areas that originated in the areas of the boundaries of science. Constant complementarity, variability, progression endows it with a number of properties. In practical terms, a thesaurus is a functional system that ensures, in cooperation with other systems, the viability of a social subject. Simply put, it is a question of the form of existence of humanitarian knowledge, in a word and manner reproducing part of the existing reality.
