lexicography

The article dwells on some questions dedicated to the description of communicative units – grammatically vague utterances that function as responses in a dialogue. The analysis is of the communicative units class containing only syntactic words, that is grammatical idioms, is held. Examples of the lexicographic description of such units are given.

The article deals with the issues of describing the lexical meaning of word-formation metaphors in thesauruses. Various means of defining derivatives with metaphoric motivation are regarded. The reasons of why it is impossible to describe the lexical meaning of some groups of derivatives by means of linking them to the generative word are established.