A Frame Semantic Analysis of Meaning and Equivalents in Malay-English Dictionaries: The Entry for the Verb Mengambil

In Malaysia, research into bilingual dictionaries is mainly focusing on the equivalents. This article is a linguistic analysis research to determine the sense division of an entry mengambil from two bilingual dictionaries, Intelek Malay-English Dictionary and Kamus Perwira Bahasa Melayu-Bahasa Inggeris. The sense division of the verb entry mengambil from the two bilingual dictionaries is incomplete compared to the same entry from the Malay dictionary Kamus Dewan Edisi Keempat. Frame Semantics is adopted in the analysis of the five million word UKM-DBP Malay corpus data to identify the frames of mengambil. The frames contain frame elements and valence patterns that differentiate one frame from another. The linguistic analysis shows that the physical frame Mengambil Fizikal can be further divided into four frames and the abstract frame Mengambil Abstrak can be further divided into three frames. This article only discusses two frames: Mengambil Fizikal and Melakukan Aktiviti which is one of the frames for Mengambil Abstrak. All the Malay frames are mapped onto the English equivalent frames from the FrameNet database. The mappings of the Malay frames with equivalent English frames lead to the English equivalents that are suitable for bilingual dictionary entry of mengambil. This analysis offers a complete and revised sense division of the entry mengambil.