Abstract:

Monolingual dictionaries are usually forgiven for not providing more grammatical information because their main target users are native speakers or highly-advanced learners, who likely do not have much need to look up the meaning and usage of, say, high-frequency function words. Dictionaries, however, also serve as encyclopaedias of linguistic information which reflect what we know and understand of the language (Hoekstra, 2010). The objective of this paper is to investigate the treatment of selected function words in MFDs at the microstructure level. We particularly focus on function words that are usually labelled as pantukoy or pang-ukol in dictionaries and Filipino grammar books. In the linguistics literature, these words have been variably called articles, determiners, prepositions, nominal markers, among others. From the wide range of terms used to label these function words, we can immediately surmise that there are some incongruence in the analyses of these words. In comparing the information provided by the MFDs, this study aims to discover the extent to which they match analyses in the linguistics literature and whether or not we would find a consensus among lexicographers where none has so far been reached among syntacticians. Recommendations on the treatment of these words will also be provided.