Types of Dictionaries

The canonical form (lemma): the form chosen to represent a paradigm

In the past, they had variations in spellings

The users of bilingual and ESL dictionaries may not know the canonical forms used as headwords

The traditional practice is to list all canonical forms as main enries

The Entry Term

1- to have those forms, there must be a standard language

If there r many forms, they should decide which one comes first

Dictionaries should have standard spellings and dialects

2- they fixed it: johnsons 1755 and webster in usa.

3- the inflected forms that differs compeletely from the canonical forms should be listed alone - is-went

4- each part of speech appear sepereat

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Polysemy: two different meanings of the same word

Homonymy: two words that are pronounced alike or have the same spelling, but differ in other respects

1- spelled the same (homographs)

2- pronounced the same (homophones)

Determining homonymy is important

Homonymy and polysemy

Grammatical functions are same but meaning is different or are they two different words

4- cuz most dictionaries put homonyms as separate headword status, wheras definitions in polysymy listed together

Homonyms -> macrostructure

Polysemy -> microstructure

Now, they don’t care about polysemy , but they want their dictionaries to be comprehensible

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In order to conserve space, they have adopted the practice of “running on” at the end of entries of canonical forms of grammatical related forms.

Some of those forms are rarely used.

Run-on Entries

1- they said that if person knows the suffix and the entry, we don’t need to explain again.

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The problem here is the absent of a standard nomenclature

Recommended criteria to determine preferred terms:

Usage

Recommendations

Self-descriptiveness

Specify

Simplicity

Conceptual relationships

Linguistic relationships

Scientific Nomenclature

Dictionaries alphabetize letter by letter rather than word by word

Power of attorney before powerful (word by word)

Scientific and technical dictionaries

Medical (main entry/subentry system: nesting) e.g. p.108 nucleus

Exceptions to the method

Treatment of idioms

Where to include it? Based on which word?

1st or more important word

Land on your feet

Idiom index - rare

Alphabetization

1-1- letter by letter arrangement is better cuz readers don’t know if a compound is spelled as one word, hyphenated, or two words

1-2- they have more problems with phrasal entries

1-3- alphabetizing under the canonical form of governing noun, then alphabetize by letter by letter in subentry (ignoring some prepositions, connectives, and articles

1-4- chemical terms. To list all methyl- terms as headwords, but not as main entries. They can be subentries

-another problem is the ordering of non-English alphabetic characters

2- Verbal idioms are trouble, but they can use computers

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Counts are clouded by deliberately confusing nomenclature used by competing publishers to promote their books as the biggest

Different forms of the head word are counted as separate entries (e.g, parachute, parachutist, parachuted)

Purposes of Main entry form:

indicates preferred spelling,

indicates the usual printed form of the lexical unit,

syllabication is indicated >problem of syllabification: man.y

Entry Count

1- number of definitions are imp than entries

p110

2- 110-111 112

3-3- syllables are less useful now. The purose was to know where to divide it. Computers do it

They start not to include run on derivities

College dictionaries – school – esl (idioms- phrasal verbs- collocations are important) they care abt definitions

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More essential for ESL / foreign language speakers than native speakers

Count nouns and mass nouns

Verb patterns

Gradeability of adjectives

Parts of speech

Function words: (of, for, at etc.)

ESL dictionaries provide more grammar than any other dictionaries

Pedagogical reasons

Adult vs children dictionaries

Grammatical Information

1- that’s why those dictionaries provide more grammatical help, cuz of audience

2-1- count and mass nouns

Context and variety of usage determine whether a noun can be plural (poetry-scientific context)

2-2- general dictionaries provide basic and explicit info. (part of speech-transitive and in tr v

They don’t want to confuse a child, so don’t include grammar

Scientific and technical dic provide lil grammar info (no part of speech- yes irregular plural forms)

Ex. P 117

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Preferred American system shows entry word respelled in alphabetic characters with diacritical marks

Based on phonemes (difference between phonemes and phones)

Reflect general pronunciation, not regional (dialect) pronunciation

Most widely used alternative to respelling is International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA), used in British monolingual dictionaries

Based on the area and manner of articulation

Uses both alphabetic and non alphabetic symbols.

ESL

Pronunciation

1- they call it respelling system: the meaningful distinctive sounds in a language, but is not based on how the sounds are produced. Not phonetic.

1-1- phonemes: the smallest units of sound that can be used to differentiate meaning

Phones: the actual speech sounds classified by the manner and the pace of articulation.

1-2- the pronunciation for general use, not a region

-the chief difficulty in representing pronunciation is the letter represents more than one sound, or two letters with same sound.

So, different symbols must be used to represent different sounds.

2- both ipa and respelling system can be used phonemically, the distinction b/w ipa and respelling system is that ipa is phonetically based, system is not.

2-1- manner: produce sounds of any language

Phonetic: tongue is high, low, vowels are short or long,

Purely phonetic description is too complicated, all phonetically systems in dic are phonemic.

Speakers know the difference by listening to natives

-p.126

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Derivation of words

May be valuable in its own right, tells us little about current meaning and is often misleading

Bailey is credited with establishing etymology as requisite of any dictionary

Not included in children’s dictionaries (unless of particular interest-brief statements ), or ESL dictionaries to saving space

Drysdale gives reasons to include etymology

Placemat of etymology

Etymology

Dictionaries of synonyms called synonymicons or synonymies.

Not until the word stock of English words increased, dictionaries of synonyms could be written.

Earlies synonym dictionaries in English was by John Trusler in 1766

Zagusta specifies 3 aspects of lexical meaning:

Designatum: essential properties of the thing or concept that define it.

Connotation: refers to associated features

Range of application: the variety of context in which the word may be used

Synonyms

When two terms correspond in all three aspects Zagusta calls it an absolute synonym. It is rare among general terms but common in technical ones especially in medicine. P.136 e.g

Near synonyms if the coresspondance is in one or two aspects.

These decisions are based on individual point of view

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Roget’s Thesaurus:

First published in 1852

Arranged not alphabetically but according to ideas

Aim: to find the words by which a given idea may be expressed

Words are classified according to their significance.

Arrangement

Conceptually: uses an index to help the reader find a word.

Alphabetically

Thesaurus

John Ogilvie’s Imperial Dictionary (1850)

First dictionary that gave prominence to pictorial illustrations

Debate about usefulness of illustrations

Take up space

How useful/representative are they?

Drawings vs. Photographs (halftones)

School dictionaries include more pictures than adult dictionaries.

ESL dictionaries: no space for pictures although desirable.

How important illustrations are depend on intended audience.

Illustrations

To what extent do they help the reader understand the meaning?

Concrete objects easier to understand by illustration

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Sections vary greatly in importance depending on the nature of the dictionary

Adult native speaker dictionaries often include usage guide

Front matter articles are seldom read by users, but important to reviewers (to evaluate dictionaries)

American college dictionaries include more back matter than British college dictionaries.

Back matter include: Appendixes on writing, punctuation, miscellany of encyclopedic material

Front and Back Matter

Purpose of a guide to describe all possible kinds of information included, how to interpret data and how to locate information

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ENG 310: Lexicography