Semantic relations between nouns and noun modifiers and their roles in dictionary definition

Firstly, this paper discusses semantic relations between nouns and their noun-modifiers. With the transformational analysis and the concept of self-reliance in word sense, a noun and its noun modifier can be regarded as a simple combination by the connection with implied predicates, which leads to the complication of semantic relations of the noun phrases. Twelve types of semantic relations are summarized to explain that the word meaning, contexts and common knowledge are the main factors in semantic relation interpretations. On the basis of the semantic relations, a model of dictionary definition can be proposed and current inaccuracies in dictionary definition identified.