Editing Circular definition (section)

====Circular lexicographic (dictionary) definitions====
{{+rs|date=March 2016}}
Dictionary entries are often given as examples of apparent circular definitions. Dictionary production, as a project in [[lexicography]], should not be confused with a [[mathematical]] or [[logical]] activity, where giving a definition for a word is similar to providing an [[explanans]] for an [[explanandum]] in a context where practitioners are expected to use a [[deductive system]].<ref>Michael Silverstein (2006). "[http://www.annualreviews.org/doi/abs/10.1146/annurev.anthro.35.081705.123327?journalCode=anthro Old Wine, New Ethnographic Lexicography]". ''Annual Review of Anthropology'', 35:486-7.</ref><ref name=Seargeant/> While, from a [[linguistic prescriptivist]] perspective, any [[dictionary]] might be believed to dictate correct usage, the [[linguistic descriptivist]] perspective recognizes that looking up words in dictionaries is not itself a rule-following practice independent of the give-and-take of using words in context.<ref name=Seargeant>Philip Seargeant, "Lexicography as a Philosophy of Language". ''Language Sciences'', 33:1-10 (2011).</ref> Thus, the example of a definition of oak given above (something that has catkins and grows from acorns) is not completely useless, even if "acorn" and "catkin" are defined in terms of "oak", in that it supplies additional concepts (e.g., the concept of catkin) in the definition. {{citation needed|date=March 2016}}

While a dictionary might produce a "circle" among the terms, "oak", "catkin", and "acorn", each of these is used in different {{clarify|reason="definition"or "context"?|text=contexts|date=March 2016}} (e.g., those related to plants, trees, flowers, and seeds) that generate ever-branching networks of usages. In another case it might produce a true circle. Taken as a whole, dictionaries are circular because each and every word is defined in terms of words that are also contained within the dictionary. ({{clarify|text=A person could not pick up a (foreign) dictionary and make any sense of it unless they already know the meaning of a minimal subset of a number of words without having the need to refer to the dictionary for said meaning.|date=March 2016}})

{{clarify|reason=needs elaboration; the concept of "circularity" is not evident in this sentence|text=A circular definition crept into the classic definition of death that was once "the permanent cessation of the flow of vital bodily fluids", which raised the question "what makes a fluid vital?"<ref>Tulloch, Gail (2005). ''Euthanasia, Choice and Death'', p.8. Edinburgh University. {{ISBN|9780748618811}}.<!--Quotes or paraphrases [[Peter Singer]].--></ref>|date=March 2016}}

Definitions in lexicography can be broadly or narrowly circular. Narrowly circular definitions simply define one word in terms of another. A broadly circular definition has a larger circle of words. For example, the definition of the primary word is defined using two other words, which are defined with two other words, etc., creating a definitional chain. This can continue until the primary word is used to define one of the words used in the chain, closing the wide circle of terms. If all definitions rely on the definitions of other words in a very large, but finite chain, then all text-based definitions are ultimately circular. [[Extension (semantics)]] to the actual things that referring terms like nouns stand for, provided that agreement on reference is accomplished, is one method of breaking this circularity, but this is outside the capacity of a text-based definition.{{citation needed|date=March 2016}}