The Main Problems of Lexicography

The main difficultys of lexicography The astir(predicate) burning resolutions of lexicography be connected with the excerpt of head- wrangling, the arrangement and contents of the wrangle entry, the commandments of intelligence definitions and the semantic and functional folkification of address. In the off circumstances printing place it is the worry of how ut vergeost a planetary descriptive style, whether unilingual or bilingual, should admit the historical element. In fact, the term flow usage is disconcertingly elastic, it whitethorn, for instance, be str etc.ed to include all denominations and intellects engagement by W.Shakespe atomic number 18, as he is ordinarily instruct, or include all those of the fossilize quarrel that ar kept in or so plume expressions or kn consume quotations, e. g. shuffled off this mortal coil ( critical point), whither coil direction turmoil (of life). For the inclination of a mental lexicon, which must not be to o bulky, option between scientific and technical terms is to a fault a very important lying-in. It is a elusive point whether a unilingual explanatory expressionary should contact to c over all the underframeulates of the lingual process, including neologisms, nonce- manner of speaking, fritter, etc. nd refer with nominatedid accuracy all the backchats in truth used by position race or whether, as the bully face lexicographer of the 18th ascorbic acid Samuel Johnson used to signify, it should be preceptive, and (viewed from the new(prenominal)wise side) prohibitive. lexicon-makers should attempt to improve and brace the side vocabulary agree to the scoop virtuous try outs and advise the referees on favourite(a) usage. A unadornedly modern tint in selection of entries is the frequency of the ledgers to be included. This is e supernumeraryly important for definite lines of practical bunk in preparing range elementary text platters.When the problem of selection is settled, in that location is the question as to which of the selected units piss the indemnify to a ruin entry and which be to be included chthonic nonpargonil jet head-word. These are, in other voice communication, the questions of some(prenominal)ty and monotony of manner of speaking. The starting deals with syntagmatic boundaries of word-units and has to put to diddle such questions as whether from from each one and only(a)(prenominal) nonpareil other is a group of devil recite lyric to be treated individually under the head- terminology each and other, or whether each other is a unit be a finical entry (compare as well genius another).Need such combinations as turn point, carbon newspaper, department store, ph wholeness lash be sub-entered under their constituents? If so, under which of them? Or, perhaps, it exit be to a slap-uper extent than convenient for those who use the lexicon if these were placed as withdraw main entr ies consisting of a nominal fuse or a phrase. As to the humdrum, this deals with paradigmatic boundaries. How galore(postnominal) entries are justified for hound? expire astray has two one for the noun, and the other for the verb to dock (as) with hounds the verb and the noun are thus treated as homonyms. Chamberss Twentieth nose candy mental lexicon combines them under one head-word, i. e. it issues them as magnetic variations of the same word (hence the term sameness). The problem is in cartridge clip more complicate with variants be to the same part of diction. This problem is outmatch illustrated by the pun that has already been discussed elsewhere in this word of honor wit you, I dont soul minding the children if the children mind me (Understand, I dont object to taking care of the children if the children con operate me). Here the dictionary-maker is confronted with the problem of sameness.Should mind be considered one word with s of all timeal semantic v ariants, and take one entry? Or is it more convenient to repre move it as several haggling? The difference in the number of entries for an equal bulk of vocabulary whitethorn besides depend on a antithetic approach to the on a regular basis tropeed unlikeial gears, like those with -er, -ing, -ness, and -ly. These are comparable to well-formed endings in their combining possibilities and semantic regularity. The derivation is so regular, and the subject matter and class of these derivatives are so easily deduced that they are sometimes sidered not worth an entry.That is wherefore the definition of the reach of a dictionary is not quite as unreserved as it might wait at first sight. thither exist nigh unsurmountable difficulties to a neat statistical military rating. approximately publishers state the number of entries in a subtitle, others even claim for the number coverage with the exception of very special terms. It must be remembered, however, that without a more a lot than not accepted quantity for settling the problems of sameness and associateness no importationful evaluation of the scope of any particular dictionary is possible.Besides in the case of a lively vocabulary the vocabulary is not stable, and the positioning of lexicographers to archaisms and neologisms varies. The arrangement of the vocabulary entry presents umpteen problems, of which the roughly important are the distinction and the sequence of dissimilar heart and souls of a polysemous word. A historical dictionary (the Oxford vocabulary, for instance) is to begin with concerned with the development of the side of meat vocabulary. It arranges various senses chronologically, first deals the etymology, then the earliest gists mark by the label obs. obsolete.The etymologies are all comparative or confined to a single language. The development is documented by illustrative quotations, ranging from the oldest to new-fashioned appearances of the word in questio n. A descriptive dictionary dealings with current usage has to face its own specific problems. It has to apply a morphologic point of view and run precedence to the astir(predicate) important consequences. But how is the roughly important meaning determined upon? So further each compiler was channelise by his own personalised p abduce. An object glass procedure would be to obtain info of statistical counts.But counting the frequency of unlike meanings of the same word is far more difficult than counting the frequency of its forms. It is so not by chance that up to now many counts have been undertaken however for word forms, irrespective of meaning. Also, the interdependence of meanings and their relative importance within the semantic mental synthesis of the word do not stay on the same. They change some incessantly, so that the task of work uping their relative frequency would have to be repeated very often. The constant revisions obligatory would make the pub lication of dictionaries very expensive.It may too be argued that an arrangement of meanings agree to frequency would sometimes conceal the ties and family between various elements of the semantic structure. nonetheless some semantic counts have been achieved and the lexicographers profited by them. Thus, in preparing high- schooltime side dictionaries the staff under chief editor C. L. Barnhart was aided by semantic counts which Dr E. L. Thorndike had made of current standard literature, from childrens discs to The Encyclopaedia Britannica. The count according to C.L. Barnhart was of enormous importance in hoard their dictionaries, moreover the lexicographer admits that counts are altogether one of the criteria demand for selecting meanings and entries, and that more dictionary take the stand is needed, designly typical quotations for each meaning. vocabulary evidence normally exists in the form of quotation slips constituting raw significant for word treatment and fil ed under their appropriate head- haggle. In editing new dictionaries the lexicographers cannot depend exactly on the scholarly discrepancys such as OED.In order to meet the demands of their readers, they have to sample the reading of the public for whom the dictionary is meant. This textual reference has to be scrupulously examined, so as to account for new words and meanings making their style into the language. Here once again some quantitative criteria must be round outd. If a word or meaning conks in several incompatible sources over a wide range of magazines and books during a considerable period of time, it may be worth including even into a college dictionary.The innovate to The Concise Oxford mental lexicon, for instance, states that its authors find that sense development cannot be presented in both word, because obsolete words are as a rule omitted. Only from time to time do they place at the extraction a rare just stable current sense, if it can throw light en on the more common senses that follow, or forms the connecting link with the etymology. The etymologies are given throughout, notwithstanding otherwise the compilers do not depend to keep to any consistent principle and are guided by what they think is the order of logical friendship, familiarity or importance.E. L. Thorndike formulates the following principles another(prenominal) things cosmos equal, literal uses come originally figurative, general uses in the first place special, common uses before rare, and easily understandable uses before difficult, and to sum up that arrangement is best for any word which helps the learner most. A synchronal dictionary should also impart the distri exception of every word. It has been traditionally do by labelling words as belonging to a certain part of talk, and by noting some special cases of grammatically or lexically bound meanings.Thus, the word turn is labelled in The Concise Oxford mental lexicon as v. t. & i. , whi ch gives a general root word of its distribution its various senses are betokenn in connection with words that may serve as subject or object, e. g. 2. (of spider, silkworm, etc. ) make (web, gossamer, cocoon, or abs. ) by extrusion of fine viscous tramp 10. spun glass (spun when heated into filaments that remain gentle when cold) spun gold, silver (gold, silver thread nimble for weaving ). This technique is gradually being improved upon, and compilers strive to provide more detailed information on these points. The in advance(p) Learners dictionary by A. S. Hornby, E. V. Gatenby and H. Wakefield supplies information on the syntactical distribution of each verb. In their Notes on phrase structure the compilers state that one who is learning side of meat as a foreign language is apt to form sentences by analogy, which at times may lead him into error. For instance, the schoolchild must be warned against taking the use of the verb tell in the sentence delight tell me the meaning as a model for the word explain, because *Please, explain me the meaning would be ungrammatical. For his advise they provide a table of 25 verb patterns and supply the quantitative indications in each verb entry. This gives the student the necessary guidance. Indications are also supplied as to which nouns and which semantic varieties of nouns may be used in the plural. This helps the student to avoid mistakes like * elicit informations. Many dictionaries indicate the different rhetorical levels to which the words belong colloquial, technical, poetical, rhetorical, archaic, familiar, vulgar or slang, and their expressive colouring emphatic, ironical, diminutive, facetious.This is important, because a unmingled definition does not show these data. There is always a difference in style between the dictionary word and its definition. The word digs is a slang word but its definition pad of paper is not. Giving these data modern dictionary-makers strive to indicate the n ature of the consideration in which the word may occur. The problem is also relevant for bilingual dictionaries and is carefully presented in the New position-Russian dictionary edited by I. R. Galperin. A third group of lexicographic problems is the problem of definitions in a unilingual dictionary.The invoice of meaning may be achieved by a group of synonyms which together give a plum general conceit but one synonym is never sufficient for the purpose, because no unequivocal synonyms exist. Besides, if synonyms are the alone shell of explanation used, the reader will be placed in a vicious circle of synonymic references, with not a single word very explained. Definitions serve the purpose a great deal better. These are of two main references. If they are only concerned with words as speech material, the definition is called lingual. If they are concerned with things for which the words are exposes, they are termed comprehensive.American dictionaries are for the most part traditionally encyclopaedic, which accounts for so a lot attendance gainful to graphic illustration. They furnish their readers with far more information round facts and things than their British counterparts, which are more linguistic and more fundamentally occupied with stringently lexical data (as contrasted to r e a 1 i a), with the grammatical properties of words, their components, their stylistic features, etc. Opinions differ upon the optimal proportion of linguistic and encyclopaedic material.Very arouse considerations on this subject are callable to Alf Sommerfeldt. He thinks that definitions must be found on the fact that the meanings of words give way complex notions which may be analysed (cf. componental analysis) into several elements rendered by other words. He emphasises, for instance, that the word pedestrian is more aptly described as a person who goes or travels on foot than as one who goes or travels on foot. The point out appears valuable, becau se a definition of this type shows the lexico-grammatical type to which the word belongs and consequently its distribution.It also helps to dampen the system of the vocabulary. Much too often, however, one sees in dictionaries no attention paid to the difference in distribution between the defined and the defining word. The meaning of the word may be also explained by examples, i. e. contextually. The term and its definition are here fused. For example, diagonal is explained by the following context where only this term can occur A square has two diagonals, and each of them divides the square into two right-angled symmetrical triangles. Very often this type can be changed into a standard form, i. . A diagonal is one of the two lines , etc. One more problem is the problem of whether all entries should be defined or whether it is possible to have the so-called speaks for derivative words in which the root-form is readily value (such as absolutely or resolutely). In fact, whereas resolutely may be conveniently given as a -ly run-on after resolute, there is a meaning problem for absolutely. One must take into consideration that in colloquial speech absolutely means quite so, yes which cannot be deduced from the meaning of the corresponding adjective.HISTORICAL using OF BRITISH AND AMERICAN LEXICOGRAPHY Although, as we have seen from the predate paragraph, there is as heretofore no coherent doctrine in face lexicography, its richness and variety are everywhere admitted and appreciated. Its history is in its way one of the most remarkable developments in philology, and is therefore worthy of special attention. In the following pages a short outline of its various phases is given. A need for a dictionary or glossary has been mat up in the cultural growth of many civilised peoples at a fairly early period.The history of dictionary-making for the slope language goes as far back as the Old English period where its first traces are found in the form of glosses of religious books with interlinear translation from Latin. unfaltering bilingual English-Latin dictionaries were already in foundation in the 15th century. The unilingual dictionary is a comparatively recent type. The first unilingual English dictionary, explaining words by English equivalents, appeared in 1604. It was meant to explain difficult words occurring in books.Its title was A Table Alphabeticall, containing and breeding the true writing and understanding of hard usuall English words borrowed from the Hebrew, Greeke, Latine or french. The little intensiveness of 120 pages explaining about 3000 words was compiled by one Robert Cawdrey, a schoolmaster. Other books followed, each longer than the preceding one. The first attempt at a dictionary including all the words of the language, not only the difficult ones, was made by Nathaniel Bailey who in 1721 make the first edition of his Universal Etymological English Dictionary.He was the first to include orthoepy and etym ology. good-looking explanatory dictionaries were created in France and Italy before they appeared for the English language. Learned academies on the continent had been established to preserve the purity of their respective languages. This was also the purpose of Dr Samuel Johnsons historied Dictionary print in 1755. 1 The vagary of purity involved a purpose to oppose change, and S. Johnsons Dictionary was meant to establish the English language in its classical form, to preserve it in all its halo as used by J. Dryden, A.Pope, J. Addison and their contemporaries. In conformity with the social order of his time, S. Johnson seek to fix and regulate English. This was the period of oft discussion about the necessity of purging and fixing English, and S. Johnson wrote that every change was undesirable, even a change for the best. When his work was accomplished, however, he had to admit he had been wrong and confessed in his preface that no dictionary of a living tongue can ever be perfect, since while it is hastening to publication, some words are budding and some travel forth.The most important renewal of S. Johnsons Dictionary was the introduction of illustrations of the meanings of the words by examples from the best writers, as had been make before him in the dictionary of the French Academy. Since then such illustrations have do a sine qua non in lexicography S. Johnson, however, only summonsed the authors and never gave any specific references for his quotations. close to probably he reproduced some of his quotations from memory, not always very exactly, which would have been out of the question in modern lexicology.The definitions he gave were often very ingenious. He was called a just definer, but sometimes he pet to give way to sarcasm or humour and did not hesitate to be partial in his definitions. The epithet he gave to lexicographer, for instance, is famous even in our time a lexicographer was a writer of dictionaries, a harmless drud ge . The dictionary dealt with separate words only, almost no set expressions were entered. Pronunciation was not marked, because S.Johnson was acuately certain of the wide variety of the English pronunciation and thought it impossible to set up a standard there he paid attention only to those aspects of vocabulary where he believed he could improve linguistic usage. S. Johnsons influence was tremendous. He remained the acknowledged authority on style and diction for more than 75 years. The result was a lofty bookish style which original the name of Johnsonian or Johnsonese. As to pronunciation, attention was turned to it somewhat after. A pronouncing dictionary that must be mentioned first was published in 1780 by Thomas Sheridan, grand stimulate of the great dramatist.In 1791 appeared The Critical Pronouncing Dictionary and Expositor of the English address by John Walker, an actor. The dash of this second dictionary was very great, and in subsequently publications Walkers pronunciations were inserted into S. Johnsons text a further step to a unilingual dictionary in its current form. The Golden Age of English lexicography began in the last quarter of the 19th century when the English philological Society started work on compiling what is now know as The Oxford English Dictionary (OED), but was originally named New English Dictionary on Historical Principles.It is still at times referred to as NED. The purpose of this monumental work is to trace the development of English words from their form in Old English, and if they were not found in Old English, to show when they were introduced into the language, and also to show the development of each meaning and its historical relation to other meanings of the same word. For words and meanings which have compose obsolete the date of the latest detail is given. All this is done by means of dated quotations ranging from the oldest to recent appearances of the words in question.The English of G. Chaucer, of the Bible and of W. Shakespeare is given as much attention as that of the most modern authors. The dictionary includes spellings, pronunciations and detailed etymologies. The boundary of the work required more than 75 years. The result is a kind of encyclopaedia of language used not only for reference purposes but also as a basis for lexicological research. The lexicographic notion here is very different from the normative tradition of Dr S. Johnson the lexicographer is the objective recorder of the language.The purpose of OED, as stated by its editors, has vigor to do with prescription or inhibition of any kind. The conception of this new type of dictionary was born in a discussion at the English Philological Society. It was suggested by Frederick Furnivall, later its second titular editor, to Richard Trench, the author of the first book on lexicology of the English language. Richard Trench read before the society his paper On Some Deficiencies in our English Dictionaries , and that was how the giving go-ahead was started.At once the Philological Society set to work to gather the material, volunteers offered to help by collecting quotations. Dictionary-making became a sort of subject field enterprise. A special committee wide-awake a list of books to be read and assigned them to the volunteers, sending them also special standard slips for quotations. By 1881 the number of readers was 800, and they sent in many thousands of slips. The tremendous number of work done by these volunteers testifies to the keen interest the English take in their language.The first part of the Dictionary appeared in 1884 and the last in 1928. Later it was issued in twelve volumes and in order to agree new words a common chord volume Supplement was issued in 1933. These volumes were rewrite in the seventies. Nearly all the material of the original Supplement was retained and a large body of the most recent accessions to the English language added. The principles, str ucture and scope of The Oxford English Dictionary, its merits and demerits are discussed in the most comprehensive treaty by L. V. Malakhovsky. Its prestige is enormous.It is considered superior to corresponding major(ip) dictionaries for other languages. The Oxford University Press published different abridge versions. The Shorter Oxford English Dictionary on Historical Principles formerly appeared in two volumes, now printed on thinner paper it is bound in one volume of 2,538 pages. It differs from the complete edition in that it contains a smaller number of quotations. It keeps to all the main principles of historical presentation and covers not only the current literary and colloquial English but also its previous stages.Words are defined and illustrated with key quotations. The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Current English was first published in 1911, i. e. before the work on the main version was sinless. It is not a historical dictionary but one of current usage. A still short er form is The Pocket Oxford Dictionary. Another big dictionary, also created by joined lather of enthusiasts, is Joseph Wrights English Dialect Dictionary. Before this dictionary could be started upon, a thorough study of English dialects had to be completed.With this aim in view W. W. Skeat, famous for his Etymological English Dictionary founded the English Dialect Society as far back as 1873. Dialects are of great importance for the historical study of the language. In the 19th century they were very marked though now they are almost disappearing. The Society existed till 1896 and issued 80 publications, in the main monographs. Curiously enough, the first American dictionary of the English language was compiled by a man whose name was also Samuel Johnson. Samuel Johnson jr. a Connecticut schoolmaster, published in 1798 a small book entitle A School Dictionary. This book was followed in 1800 by another dictionary by the same author, which showed already some signs of Americani sation. It included, for instance, words like tomahawk and wampum, borrowed into English from the Indian languages. It was Noah Webster, universally considered to be the father of American lexicography, who emphatically broke away from English idiom, and embodied in his book the specifically American usage of his time.His great work, The American Dictionary of the English Language, appeared in two volumes in 1828 and later sustained numerous revise and overdone editions. In many respects N. Webster follows the lead of Dr S. Johnson (the British lexicographer). But he has also improved and corrected many of S. Johnsons etymologies and his definitions are often more exact. N. Webster assay to simplify the spelling and pronunciation that were current in the USA of the period. He given many years to the collection of words and the preparation of more accurate definitions. N.Webster take in the importance of language for the development of a nation, and devoted his energy to giving t he American English the status of an independent language, distinct from British English. At that time the fancy was progressive as it helped the unification of separate states into one federation. The tendency became reactionary later on, when some modern linguists like H. Mencken shaped it into the theory of a separate American language, not only different from British English, but surpassing it in aptitude and therefore deserving to dominate and supercede all the languages of the world.Even if we keep within stringently linguistic or purely lexical concepts, we shall readily see that the difference is not so great as to secondment American English the rank of a separate language, not a variant of English (see p. 265). The set of morphemes is the same. Some words have acquired a new meaning on American soil and this meaning has or has not penetrated into British English. Other words kept their earlier meanings that are obsolete and not used in Great Britain. As civilisation progressed different names were given to new inventions on either side of the Atlantic. Words were borrowed from different Indian languages and from Spanish.All these had to be recorded in a dictionary and so accounted for the humankind of specific American lexicography. The world of straightaway with its ever-growing efficiency and intensity of communication and personal contacts, with its press, radio and television creates conditions which tend to bring up not an isolation of dialects and variants but, on the contrary, their correlative penetration and integration. Later on, the title external Dictionary of the English Language was adopted, and in the latest edition not Americanisms but words not used in America (Britishisms) are marked off.N. Websters dictionary enjoyed great popularity from its first editions. This popularity was receivable not only to the accuracy and pellucidity of definitions but also to the richness of superfluous information of encyclopaedic charact er, which had become a tradition in American lexicography. As a dictionary N. Websters book aims to treat the entire vocabulary of the language providing definitions, pronunciation and etymology. As an encyclopaedia it gives explanations about things named, including scientific and technical subjects.It does so more concisely than a full-scale encyclopaedia, but it is worthy of note that the definitions are as a rule up-to-date and nasty scientifically. Soon after N. Websters conclusion two printers and booksellers of Massachusetts, George and Charles Merriam, secured the rights of his dictionary from his family and started the publication of revised single volume editions under the name Merriam-Webster. The staff working for the modern editions is a big institution numbering hundreds of specialists in different branches of human activity.It is important to note that the name Webster may be connected for publicitys sake by anyone to any dictionary. Many publishers concerned with their gelt have taken this opportunity to issue dictionaries called Websters. Some of the books so named are cheaply-made reprints of old editions, others are said to be entirely new works. The practice of advertize by coupling N. Websters name to a dictionary which has no connection with him, continues up to the present day. A complete revision of N. Websters dictionary is achieved with a certain degree of regularity.The recent Websters Third New International Dictionary of the English Language has called forth much comment, both favourable and unfavourable. It has been greatly changed as compared with the previous edition, in word selection as well as in other matters. The emphasis is on the contemporary state of the language. The number of illustrative quotations is increased. To make up the great number of new words and meanings without increasing the bulk of the volume, the editors excluded much encyclopaedic material.The other great American dictionaries are the Century Dic tionary, first completed in 1891 Funk and Wagnalls New example Dictionary, first completed in 1895 the Random House Dictionary of the English Language, completed in 1967 The hereditary pattern Illustrated Dictionary of the English Language, first published in 1969, and C. L. Barnharts et al. The knowledge base Book Dictionary presenting a synchronic review of the language in the twentieth century. The first three continue to appear in variously named subsequent editions including abridged versions.Many small handy popular dictionaries for office, school and home use are brisk to meet the demand in reference books on spelling, pronunciation, meaning and usage. An adequate idea of the dictionaries cannot be formed from a true description and it is no substitute for actually using them. To conclude we would like to mention that for a specialist in linguistics and a teacher of foreign languages self-opinionated work with a good dictionary in conjunction with his reading is an abs olute necessity.