How to make a dictionary - Lecture 4

Lecture Four, 6th of November 2007

Lexical Databases


1. Introduction
2. Learner's Diary
3. Tasks and Quizzes
4. Evaluation
5. References


1. Introduction

First a short revision of semasiological and onomasiological dictionaries. The new topic was about the deeper structure of the dictionary.



2. Learner's Diary

semasiological dictionary
reader’s dictionary, or decoding dictionary


onomasiological dictionary
writer’s dictionary, or encoding dictionary

dictionary information
metadata: catalogue information about the production of the dictionary, intended for dictionary identification


Types of lexical information in dictionary entries

Form (appearance) spelling, pronunciation
Structure (formulation) construction of words
Content (meaning) definition, relation with other words, examples


The surface structure of dictionaries

Semasiological dictionaries

the basic form is a TABLE
- the rows are lexical entries, with a specific microstructure
- the columns are single types of lexical information
- if the orthography or phonology of a lexical item is ambiguous, then
- either the item is repeated with the new information
- or a sub-table is created

but this depends on the kind of ambiguity
- homonymy (homography, homophony)
Homographs: Band, band
Homophones: meet, meat
- polysemy











Definitions and etymology out of: http://www.m-w.com/.



4. Evaluation

The work with the table and the presentation of OneLook was very good and helpful. We revised the topic semasiological and onomasiological dictionaries a third time.
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5. References

http://wwwhomes.uni-bielefeld.de/~gibbon/Classes/Classes2007WS/ITL/index.html