LINGUIST List 17.2369

Tue Aug 22 2006

Diss: Text/Corpus Ling&Lexicography: Christou: 'A Metalexicographic...'

Editor for this issue: Hannah Morales <hannahlinguistlist.org>


Directory         1.    Marianna Christou, A Metalexicographic Investigation into a Set of Complex Modern Greek Verbs: A comparison of existing dictionary entries with corpus evidence


Message 1: A Metalexicographic Investigation into a Set of Complex Modern Greek Verbs: A comparison of existing dictionary entries with corpus evidence
Date: 21-Aug-2006
From: Marianna Christou <marianna_christouhotmail.com>
Subject: A Metalexicographic Investigation into a Set of Complex Modern Greek Verbs: A comparison of existing dictionary entries with corpus evidence


Institution: University of Birmingham Program: English Department Dissertation Status: Completed Degree Date: 2003

Author: Marianna N. Christou

Dissertation Title: A Metalexicographic Investigation into a Set of Complex Modern Greek Verbs: A comparison of existing dictionary entries with corpus evidence

Linguistic Field(s): Lexicography                             Text/Corpus Linguistics
Subject Language(s): Greek (ell)
Dissertation Director:
George D. Babiniotis Philip B. King
Dissertation Abstract:

This thesis aims to make a contribution to the field of Modern Greeklexicography, and in particular to the theory of dictionary research. Forthis reason, it sets out to explore how corpus evidence can throw light ondictionary definitions, senses and examples. To illustrate this, itcombines a descriptive and an empirical approach to the investigation ofthe lemmata that have prepositional prefixes and derive from the verb ΒΑΛΛΩ[≈ "to fire"; "to attack"] thus belonging to the same word family. Thestudy draws upon principles of mainstream lexicography to scrutinise thetheoretical premises on which two recent Greek dictionaries are based. Forthe purposes of comprehensive data analysis, both qualitative andquantitative methods are employed.

As this analysis reveals, taking frequencies into consideration would havea profound effect on the existing sense ordering in the dictionary entries.Moreover, it emerges from the results that the entries may be enrichedthrough close scrutiny of the Hellenic National Corpus evidence, whichfurnishes additional meanings and uses not included in the dictionaries.The outcome of the present thesis is of practical use for lexicographers,researchers and linguists concerned with the description and the in-depthanalysis of the Modern Greek language.