2007-11-6

Summaries

In the following chapter, we have come across the surface structure of a dictionary, namely, the appearance, rendering of a dictionary. However, beneath the surface structure, there's a deep structure as well. That is to say, appearcance reflects the underline structure. Yet, "dictionaries are simpler under the surface than the real life..." (Notes from Gibbon).

Take semasiological dictionaries for example. The basic form is a table: the rows are lexical entries with a specific microstructure, while the columns are single types of lexical information with special kind of meanings.

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, say homonymy (homography, homophony) or polysemy.

1. Homography is one of a group of words that share the same spelling but have different meanings. Homophony is a word that is pronounced the same as another word but differs in meaning. The words may be spelled the same, such as rose (flower) and rose (past tense of "rise"), or differently, such as carat, caret, and carrot, or two and too . A short example of a homophone are the words "know" and "no".

As mentioned in the pervious sections, a dictionary usually provides two kinds of information: Metadata and Lexical Information. Metadata is catalogue information about the production of the dictionary, intended for dictionary identification.

2. Types of lexical information in dictionary entries:
– FORM (cf. appearance), e.g. spelling, pronunciation
– STRUCTURE (cf. formulation), e.g. construction of words, place of words in larger constructions (e.g.sentences)
– CONTENT (cf. meaning):

● definition
● relations with other words
● examples

As showed in the following graphic:

The traditional solution to make a dictionary as tables is card indexes, while the modern method is to create a database.

Now, we'd figure out one thing at first that is the features of a table.

3. The basic model of a table:
– Table: a list of rows
– Row: a list of fields
– Column: a list of fields in the same row position

The frequently used database management systems (DBMS) are following:

● Microsoft Access (medium-scale, commercial)
● FoxPro (medium-scale, commercial)
● Oracle (vey large-scale, commercial)
● Software tools especially for linguists:
– Toolbox lexical database management system:
– Check http://www.sil.org (Notes from Gibbon)

Exercises

1. List the databases you use.

A: Recipy, Name cards, Telephone numbers on a cell phone, etc.

2. List the information that should go into a dictionary microstructure.

A: Headword, spelling, pronunciation, definition, internal structure, external structure (POS).