La définition lexicographique selon la Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire

This paper discusses the elaboration of lexicographic definitions according to the principles of the Explicative and Combinatorial Lexicology, the theoretical and descriptive lexicology embedded in the Meaning-Text linguistic theory. Following this approach, the lexicographic definition of a lexical unit is taken to be its exact analytical paraphrase, which underlies the description of other relevant linguistic properties of this lexical unit. Three questions draw our special attention: 1) the formal properties of lexicographic definitions; 2) the interdependence between the free cooccurrence of a lexical unit, which is covered by its definition, and its restricted cooccurrence, accounted for by other components of its lexical entry; 3) some recurrent practical problems posed by definitions.