Boris Iomdin
Russian Language Institute,
Russian Academy of Sciences
iomdin@ruslang.ru
Lecture 6. Plan
 History of lexicography
 Families of dictionaries
 Lexicology vs. lexical semantics
 New type of dictionary:
 productive
 systematic
 integrated
 Lexeme as the main unit of description
 New types of information in the lexical entry:
 non-trivial semantic features
 connotations
Glosses
A gloss is the
meaning of a less
known word marked
at the margin of a
manuscript
Sumerian (XXV B.C.), Chinese (XX B.C.),
Ancient Greek, Indian glosses
First dictionaries: Chinese
Erya (III B.C.):
a collection of direct glosses
to concrete passages
in ancient texts
4300 words, 13000 hieroglyphs
Shuowen Jiezi (II B.C.):
Explaining simple and compound
characters
9353 characters + 1163 variants
First dictionaries: Latin
De Significatu Verborum,
 Marcus Verrius Flaccus (I century),
 Sextus Pompeius Festus (II century, an
abridgment in 20 books,
arranged alphabetically)
First dictionaries: English
Épinal Glossary (VII):
bilingual (Old English
to Latin) dictionary,
3200 words
First dictionaries: Slavic
 Glossary manuscripts, the earliest (1282) contains 174 words
 The first printed Slavic dictionary:
Annex to Grammar by Laurentius Zizanius (1596),
1061 words
Golden age of lexicography
 In postwar Europe, it was clearly understood that the
dictionary is the key to culture.
 Hence, in France, then Great Britain and the US, an
then in many other countries, lexicography becomes
very active.
Golden age of lexicography
More than 90% of
British households
have at least one
explanatory dictionary
Dictionaries are more
popular than cookbooks
(70%) or the Bible (80%)
Families
Families of dictionaries
 Webster, Random House, Barnhart, American
Heritage (USA)
 Oxford, Chambers, Collins, Hamlyn, Longman
(Great Britain)
 Le Robert, Larousse, Tresor (France)
 Duden, Langenscheidt (Germany)
 Academy of Sciences (USSR, than Russia)
A dictionary family
 Large explanatory dictionary
 Small explanatory dictionary
 Learners dictionary
 Phraseological dictionary
 Historical dictionary
 Regional dictionary
 Dictionary of synonyms
…
Lexicology vs. lexical semantics
 Lexicology is much older: Diderot et d’Alembert 1765
 Common interests:
 what do lexical units mean
 whether two or more given words are different or are
they variants of a single word


polysemy or homonymy (lexical semantics)
phonetic and morphological variants (lexicology)
 what the system of lexicon is
Lexical semantics ignored:
 separate word / morpheme / word combination
 etymology: aboriginal words / loanwords
 frequency of use: active / passive
 style: elevated / standard / colloquial / slang etc.
Traditional lexicology ignored:
 integrated description of language
 metalanguage for description of meanings
 rules according to which lexical units interact
 highly systematic organization of the lexicon
New type of dictionary






Active (productive)
Systematic
Integrated
Reflecting the naïve picture of the world
Using special metalanguage
Combining techniques of corpus lexicography
and experimental linguistics
Productive
 Comprehensive information on each lexeme,
necessary not only to understand its every
occurrence in texts, but also to use it correctly
in speech.
 Hence new types of information needed to
describe fully the linguistic competence of
native speakers.
Systematic
 The semantic system of the human language as a
framework of repeated semantic oppositions.
 They divide the lexicon into classes of lexemes, or
lexicographic types (with many intersections),
having common properties.
 Words of same types react identically or very
similarly to different linguistic rules.
Integrated
 The description of the lexicon should be
coordinated with the description of the grammar
as much as possible.
 Different kinds of rules :
 Morphological
 Syntactic
 Semantic
 Communicative
 Pragmatic
 etc.
Reflecting the NPW

The NPW may differ from the scientific picture
of the world and from the NPWs of other
languages

Reconstruction of naïve ethics, anatomy,
psychology, teleology, time, space, etc. is based
on linguistic data only

The reconstructed fragments serve as a
theoretical basis for further lexicographic
descriptions
Metalanguage




Special metalanguage should be used for the
analytic explications of the meaning
It should be a sublanguage of the object
language, but use only simple words and
constructions
No homonymy or synonymy is allowed
The semantic metalanguage may be easily
reduced to a small number of semantic
primitives
Corpora and experiments
 Unlike traditional dictionaries, new ones
should be based on large and balanced text
corpora (collections of texts)
 Linguistic experiments (putting words into
different contexts and than evaluating the
sentences) should also be widely used
 Negative linguistic material is especially useful
when demonstrating correct word usage
Картотеки
Lexeme as the unit
 A lexeme is a certain meaning of a given word
(monosemous words have one lexeme, polysemous
words have several lexemes)
 A complete description of the lexeme is the principal
component of the integrated description of language
 The description includes:
 Analytic explication in a special metalanguage
 Rules of interaction of meanings
 Non-trivial semantic features
 Connotations
 Pragmatic information
Non-trivial semantic features
Sofa
Armchair
Fridge
TV set
Stool
Table
Lamp
Cube
 objects with / without own anatomy
 objects with a front: width and depth; left vs. right, in front
of vs. behind according to their own anatomy
 objects without a front: width and length; left vs. right, in
front of vs. behind according to the observer’s point of view
Non-trivial semantic features
 X is in front of Y = ‘X is situated on that side of Y
through which Y is normally used, and in a distance to
Y which is comparable to the dimensions of Y’
[if Y is an object with a front]
 X is in front of Y = ‘X is situated between Y and the
observer, the dimensions of X and Y are comparable,
and the speaker estimates the distance from X to Y as
not long, comparable to the distance from X to the
observer ’ [if Y is an object without a front]
Non-trivial semantic features
 My car was in front of the house.
 My car was in front of the lake.
 The lake was in front of the mountain.
 *The lake was in front of the bush.
 The picture was behind the mirror.
 The picture was behind the lamp.
 the top <bottom> of the cupboard
 the top <bottom> of the cube
Girl in front of the car
Girl in front of the car
Connotations
 An inessential but settled feature of a notion that
reflects an evaluation of the referent in the language
 The connotation of a lexeme is not part of its meaning
and cannot be logically concluded from it
 Therefore, not included into the explication
 Helps explain the phraseology, figurative meanings,
semantic links between different lexemes, etc.
 Connotations are often language-specific
Connotations of Dutch
 Dutch bargain. A bargain settled over drinks.
 Dutch courage. The courage exerted by drink.
 Dutch defense. A sham, feigned defense.
 Dutch feast. Where the entertainer gets drunk before
his guest.
 Dutch headache. Hangover.
 Dutch treat. A meal, amusement, etc., at which each
person pays for himself.
Boys will be boys
 Boys will be boys
 ?Les garçons seront les garçons
 ?Knaben werden Knaben
 ?Mal’chiki vsegda budut mal’chikami
 ?Lexicographers will be lexicographers
 ?Lamas will be lamas
 ?Computers will be computers
 ?Dictionaries will be dictionaries
Boys will be boys (Wierzbicka)
(a) everyone knows:
people of this kind do things like this
one would want them no to do things like this
(b) I know: someone can think:
this is bad, they should not do it
(c) I think: one should not think this
(d) one should know:
all people of this kind are the same
they want to do things like this because they want to feel something good
they will do them because of that
they cannot not do them
(e) I don’t want to think: this is bad
I don’t want to feel something bad because of this
(g) I think: people of this kind are not bad
(f)
Connotations of animals
 wolf: ‘cruelty’, ‘rapacity’, ‘greed’ in Russian, English,
Chinese
 cow: ‘stupidity’ in English, ‘overweight’ in Russian,
‘strength, persistence’ in Chinese
 goose: ‘wealth’ and ‘stupidity’ in English, ‘importance’
in Russian, ‘married bliss’ in Chinese
 snake: ‘cunning, treachery’ in English and Chinese,
‘danger’ in Russian, ‘immortality’ in Korean
 elephant: ‘heaviness, awkwardness’ in Russian, ‘grace,
elegance’ in Sanskrit
Next lecture
 Systematic lexicography. Lexicographic
types. Lexicographic portraits.