Summary Details
| Query: |
sum: dictionary presentation of derived words
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| Author: | Bruno Maroneze Maroneze | |
| Submitter Email: | click here to access email | |
| Linguistic LingField(s): |
Translation
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| Summary: |
Dear linguists,
Some days ago I posted the following query to LinguistList: ''In English language dictionaries, derived words are generally indicated after the primitive word's definition (except when the derived word's meaning is not the sum of the meanings of its parts). An example from the ''English Dictionary Concise Edition'' (Geddes & Grosset, 1999): nomad n one of a people or tribe who move in search of pasture; a wanderer. - nomadic adj. This, as far as I know, is a tradition only in English language lexicography. I wish to know when this tradition began (in which lexicographical work), and if there are dictionaries in other languages which also present derived words this way.'' I received some interesting answers: Ed Burstynsky (burstyns@chass.utoronto.ca) reminded me that the dictionaries don't use the same criteria to separate or put together these entries. He mentioned that in the latest Oxford Dictionary of American English there are two separate entries for farm and farmer, while nomad and nomadic have just one entry. G. Zuckermann (gz208@cam.ac.uk) said that the Arabic (and Hebrew) dictionaries list all words under their root, because of the morphological structure of the language, and this is even more remarkable than the English case. Ivan A Derzhanski (iad@math.bas.bg) also mentioned the Arabic and Hebrew dictionaries, and added that Russian dictionaries also put derived words in the same entry, ''as long as the derived word's meaning can be calculated straighforwardly''. Tim Beasley (tbeasley@humnet.ucla.edu) also mentioned the Russian case, as well as Czech, and added that this may be because these languages have very productive derivational morphological systems. Besides that, he also mentioned that etymological dictionaries, in all languages, tend to put the words this way. So, this is not a tradition from English lexicography, as I thought. But I still couldn't find when this tradition began. Maybe it started in many languages at the same time. Another point that could be discussed is whether this is good or bad for the consultant. But this is a subject for another query! Best regards, Bruno O. Maroneze University of S?o Paulo - Brazil |
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| LL Issue: | 14.1993 | |
| Date Posted: | 23-Jul-2003 | |
| Original Query: | Read original query | |
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