The number of words that a dictionary contains will depend on its size and purpose. Dictionaries vary in the amount of detail that they provide for etymologies. Meaning relations such as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy – are rarely treated explicitly in dictionaries.
LEXICOLOGY UNIT 8: WORDS IN DICTIONARIES 8.1 Repositories of words The number of words that a dictionary contains will depend on its size and purpose ☼ According to purpose: General-purpose dictionaries => native speakers of the language Children’s dictionaries => those acquiring English as their first language or through English medium education Learner’s dictionaries => those learning English as a second or foreign language usually in adolescence or adulthood ☼ According size: Children’s dictionaries come in various sizes, from large-format picture book dictionaries, dictionaries for teenagers Learner’s dictionaries => a progression from bilingual dictionaries in the language learning process => intermediate / advanced stage of language learning General-purpose dictionaries come in three sizes: Business English Page of desk size (equivalent to college dictionaries in the USA), e.g Collins English Dictionary (CED), Longman Dictionary of the English Language (LDEL), the Oxford Dictionary of English; concise size, e.g the Concise Oxford English Dictionary (COD), Collins Concise English Dictionary, Longman Concise English Dictionary; pocket size, e.g the Pocket Oxford Dictionary, etc How many words does a dictionary contain? It’s very difficult to ascertain how many words a dictionary contains Why few dictionaries announce how many ‘headwords’ they have? ‘headwords’ may include abbreviations, prefixes, suffixes, combining forms, etc - word class different policy of different dictionaries What are the other ways of counting the contents of dictionaries? ‘definitions’ or ‘meanings’ - ‘references’ (headword; any additional word class, any inflected forms given, variant spellings, etc What types of words are added in dictionaries? Selection of vocabulary Everyday words (core words) Colloquial, facetious, slang, vulgar expressions Business English Page of Vocabulary of science and technology Information technology, the environment, business and finance, medicine, sport and popular culture Arrangement of vocabulary: Alphabetical arrangement Most Dictionaries - nest / run-on words derived from a headword by suffixation (ex: folksiness is a run-on under folksy in COD9) - Fixed phrases and dictionaries( ‘everything but the kitchen sink’ is under kitchen in COD9) - Treatment of compound words (solid: landmark or hyphenated: land-law) 8.2 Information about words Types of lexical fact: Phonology: the pronunciation of a word and variants Morphology: a word’s morpheme composition, and any irregular inflections Syntax: the word class and particular structures a word may enter Semantics: the meanings of a word and the semantic structure it may enter Business English Page of Context: restrictions on social context and style in which a word may be used Spelling: the normal and any variant spellings of a word Etymology: the origin and history of a word Usage: frequently of use, when acquired, taboos Phonology 1) In terms of phonology, what all general-purpose dictionaries give? Transcription of the pronunciation of words in isolation and accentual pattern of polysyllabic items 2) Which transcription system most dictionaries use? International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) 3) Why are there arguments against IPA? Unfamiliar symbols 4) What is the advantage of IPA? One-to-one correspondence between sound and symbol 5) Where most people learn the pronunciation of words? Hearing others say the word/ guessing a pronunciation from the spelling 6) Whose pronunciation is represented in dictionaries? Received Pronunciation (RP) / Educated British English Business English Page of Morphology 1) What are the two aspects of the morphology of words taken into account? inflectional and derivational 2) How are the inflections of words indicated? indicate regular/ irregular form/ where spelling is changed 3) Do dictionaries explain the morphemic structure of a word? How is derivational morphology explained in dictionaries? No mention simple root/ derived/ compound Dictionaries not explicitly indicate the morphemic structure of a word Word class/ part of speech: noun, verb, preposition, etc Verbs are sub-classified into transitive and intransitive Sytax 1) Which syntactic information is indicated in dictionaries? The most basic item of syntactic information is the word class, or part-of-speech, to which a lexeme belongs Designating a word as a ‘noun’ or ‘verb’ or ‘preposition’ indicates how the word may operate in syntactic structure 2) Do general-purpose dictionaries provide syntactic information? Business English Page of General-purpose dictionaries are not very good at providing syntactic information Semantics Giving definitions Definitions are an attempt to characterize the denotation of words The most common type is analytical definition, based on the classical schema of ‘genus’ and ‘differentiae’ The ‘genus’ assigns the word to a class of items ‘differentiae’ distinguishes the meaning of this particular word from those of others in the class Information includes the level of formality for words that are marked: formal, informal, colloquial, slang Dictionaries usually provide: + adding a suffix to a root (lorry-lorries, reply-replies) + alternative spellings (centre-center, colour-color) Etymology Dictionaries vary in the amount of detail that they provide for etymologies Old English, borrowed from another language Usage : Business English Page of + restrictions on the usage of words + frequency of use of a word + occasions of use + particular occasions of use + taboos on words 8.3 How dictionaries decide? Selection of vocabulary: dictionaries are selective and comprehensive Homographs: whether a dictionary may contain more than one entry for the same spelling and how many Polysemy: a different number of senses Order of senses: frequency or commonness of use or the earliest to the latest sense Derivatives, compounds and multiword lexemes: the treatment of derivatives is not uniform in dictionaries compounds may be spelt in different ways: solid, hyphenated and open phrasal verbs are composed of a verb word and an adverb particle (point out, run down, etc ) are usually included within the entry for verb word 8.4.2 Meaning relations Business English Page of Meaning relations such as synonymy, antonymy, hyponymy, meronymy – are rarely treated explicitly in dictionaries The analytical definition is formed using the meaning relation of hyponymy Where meaning relations are used for the purposes of definition, the intention is not to give information about the meaning relations that the defined lexemes enter into, but rather merely to exploit the meaning relations for the purposes of defining In that case, the dictionary is not describing meaning relations, and so we can conclude that this is an area where dictionaries give scant information In general-purpose dictionaries, any descriptions of collocation are quite limited So-called ‘grammatical’ collocation (Benson ef al 1986a), e.g the preposition that usually follows a verb, noun or adjective (grieve for, annoyance at, afraid of), is generally given, but collocation proper, i.e ‘lexical’ collocation, is less usually indicated 8.5 Dictionaries and vocabulary General-purpose dictionaries contain a selection of words from the current vocabulary of English, and they are arranged more or less in alphabetical order The perspective that dictionaries give of the vocabulary tends to be atomistic, treating each word as if it exists and has developed as an item isolated from all other words Business English Page of 8.6 Lexicology and lexicography Lexicology is the branch of linguistics that investigates, describes and theorizes about vocabulary (Chapter 1) Lexicography is concerned with the making of dictionaries: it is both what dictionary makers ~ lexicographers — do, and also the theorizing about dictionaries and their compilation, In a sense, lexicography is applied lexicology Business English Page of ... ascertain how many words a dictionary contains Why few dictionaries announce how many ‘headwords’ they have? ‘headwords’ may include abbreviations, prefixes, suffixes, combining forms, etc - word. .. morphology of words taken into account? inflectional and derivational 2) How are the inflections of words indicated? indicate regular/ irregular form/ where spelling is changed 3) Do dictionaries. .. general-purpose dictionaries provide syntactic information? Business English Page of General-purpose dictionaries are not very good at providing syntactic information Semantics Giving definitions Definitions