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Circular definition


A circular definition is one that uses the term(s) being defined as a part of the definition or assumes a prior understanding of the term being defined. There are several kinds of circular definition, and several ways of characterising the term: pragmatic, lexicographic and linguistic.

From a pragmatic point of view, circular definitions may be characterised in terms of new, useful or helpful information: A definition is deficient if the audience must either already know the meaning of the key term, or if the term to be defined is used in the definition itself. Such definitions lead to a need for additional information that motivated someone to look at the definition in the first place and, thus, violate the principle of providing new or useful information. Here are some examples:

Consequently, when constructing systems of definitions, authors should use good practices that avoid producing viciously circular definitions. In many learner's dictionaries, circular definitions are greatly reduced by writing definitions using only the words in a constrained defining vocabulary.

From a lexicographic point of view, the simplest form of circular definition in a dictionary is in terms of synonyms, and the number of steps for closing the definition chain into a circle is known as the depth of the circular definition: the circular definition "object: a thing" → "thing: an object" is a circular definition with a depth of two. The circular definition "object: a thing" → "thing: an entity" → "entity: an object" has a depth of three.

The classic "genus-difference" dictionary definition is in terms of nearest kind (genus proximum) and specific differences (differentia specifica). This genus-difference description may be involved in producing circular definitions of part and kind relationships, for example: "rake: an implement with three or more tines" → "tine: a part of a rake". However, if more specific differences are added, then the effect of circularity may disappear: "rake: a gardening implement with a long handle with three or more tines arranged on crossbar at 90° to the handle and the tines at 90° to both crossbar and handle"; in this case, "tine" is most usefully defined with reference to "rake", but with additional differences providing points of comparison, e.g.: "tine: a sharp spike at the end of a rake". In practice, a pragmatic approach is often taken in considering the effects of circularity in dictionary definitions.

From a linguistic point of view, some intuitively circular definitions in the derivation of words can easily be shown to be non-circular. For example, sometimes a definition like "musicality: the quality or state of being musical" is said to be circular. But strictly speaking, the condition "the term(s) being defined as a part of the definition or assumes a prior understanding of the term being defined" is false in this case. The definition chain "musicality: the quality or state of being musical" → "musical: associated with music" → "music: an acoustic art form" is a two-step derivation of the word "musicality" from the root "music", where the chain ends. A definition chain which ends is not circular. It may be objected that the term to be defined and one of the difference terms in the definition share the same root; the answer is that the objection requires prior analysis of the terms in order to identify identical parts, yet the terms themselves cannot be reduced to these parts: the meaning of "musicality" is composed of the meaning of "musical" and the meaning of "ity", the meaning of "musical" is composed of the meaning of "music" and "al". In each case, the terms to be defined and the terms in the definition are different.


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