 http://www.schoolrack.com/ola_alarjani/
Chapter 2:
General Monolingual
English Dictionaries
The purpose of this chapter
 The
purpose of this chapter is to introduce
general-purpose monolingual English
dictionaries and present their general
features which make them useful for both
language learners and translators.
 Compiling general monolingual
dictionaries started centuries ago for the
purpose of protecting languages and
preserving their purity.
 Therefore,
the compilers of these
dictionaries were keen to include all the
required information related to any word
included in their manuscripts.
 This task is now made a lot easier today
by the modern technology used in
compiling dictionaries.
The linguistic information:
 The
linguistic information related to any
word spans a wide variety of linguistic
aspects including pronunciation,
syllabification, usage, and so on.
 This wide range of information can only
be provided in a monolingual dictionary.
 All
the different types of linguistic
information can be found altogether in a
monolingual dictionary.
 Once the user is familiar with them in such
a dictionary, it will be easy for him to
recognize any kind of information in any
other specialized dictionary.
The components of
monolingual dictionaries:
A
dictionary can be described in
terms of its macrostructure and
microstructure.
I) The macrostructure:
The macrostructure is concerned with the
overall organization of the components of
a dictionary including lexical entries and
their microstructure.
 The macrostructure level includes the
following components:

1) Front matter:

Front matter: provides a guide to the use
of the dictionary and gives a full
description of every part of the dictionary:
entry word, syllabification, pronunciation,
inflected forms, various kinds of labels,
cross-references, variants, etymology,
synonyms and usage notes.
 The
guide helps the reader to interpret all
the labels and symbols given in entries
and provides clues for locating as quickly
as possible particular items of information
 A sample page is often printed with
various parts of the entries bracketed and
linked to captions that identify each part
and refer to sections of the guide where
the items are discussed.
 They vary from one dictionary to another.
2) Back matter:

Back matter contains various linguistic aids such
as:

Lists of irregular verbs, spelling guides, tables of
ordinal and cardinal numbers, tables of weights
and measures and punctuation guides.

Others include sections listing biographical and
geographical names, different practical guides to
writing, (pronunciation, grammar, style), forms of
address, signs and symbols, lists of abbreviations,
foreign words and phrases, and given names.
3) Middle matter:

Middle matter is usually devoted to
grammatical information and sometimes
consists of only illustrative graphs. Not
many dictionaries have a middle matter.
4) Alphabetization:
 Alphabetization:
entries or words are
arranged alphabetically, according to
the 1st letter. When words begin with the
same letter, they are arranged according
to the second letter, and so on. This
makes it easy to find a certain word fast
and effortlessly. But in some dictionaries,
like Roget's thesaurus, words are arranged
conceptually.
5) Guide words:


The guide words are two words in bold put at
the top of any page; the one on the left is the
same first word on the same page, and the one
on the right is the same last word on the same
page.
Sometimes, the two words are not on the same
page but rather on two opposite pages; one is
put on the left top of the page on the left and
the second guide word is put on the right top of
the page on the right.
• In the following sample page you can see
how words are arranged alphabetically.
You can also see guide words (envious /
epithet) and (epitome / ermine) typed in
boldface at the top of each page.
Exercises:
 1)
 a)
Arrange the following words alphabetically:
entity
entrant
entreat
entry
entangle
enteritis
entice
entrap
entente
entail
entertaining
entrance
entrée
entertain
 b)
roadie
rock
road rage
road tax
road
roam
roar
roadworks
road atlas
roadworthy
road hog
robust
road map
roadkill
roadshow
road sign
road test
roadhouse
roadblock
roadside
roadway
roadrunner
road
trip roach
2) What are the guide words
for the following words:
 slow
extent
further
likely
argue
roundly
3) Which of the following words appear
between the guide words
"exterminate/extremely":
 extern
extrinsic
extent
extravert
extreme
extremist
extend
extinct
externalize
extricate extrovert
extra
exterior
extort
extravagant
II) The microstructure:
 The
microstructure is concerned with the
structure of individual lexical entries,
including types of lexical information and
the way in which types of lexical
information are organized. In any entry, at
least three of the following elements
appear:

1) Entry: consists of a headword and all the
information provided about this word.

2) Sub-entry: is a word or a phrase derived
from the main entry and included within the
main entry. Some dictionaries treat all derived
words as sub-entries under one main entry to
save space. Derived forms may be listed as
main entries in some dictionaries.

3) Headword: is the word that appears at the
beginning of an entry, usually printed in
boldface
Exercises:
 1)
How many entries do the following
headwords have in your dictionary?
fight
base
make up
bank
 2)
Following are entries taken from two
different dictionaries. Compare between
them.
 Look at your booklet
4. Orthographic information

This relates to the written forms or spellings
of words. Variant spellings are given if
words are spelled differently in different
parts of the English-speaking world (online
or on-line; medieval also mediaeval)
Exercises:
 1)
Which word has a variant spelling?
judge
counseling
advice
tantalize
sabre
flavor
traveling
lurch defenceless
aging
judgment
almanac Palaeozoic
syphon
encyclopedia
reconnoitre
2) Decide whether the following are
American or British spellings.
 dehumanise
esthetic
marvellous
color

5. Morphological information.



This kind of information includes three aspects
in monolingual English dictionaries:
Syllabification: is dividing up words into
syllables by means of dots (tri.mor.phic)
word inflections: of the word are the different
forms of a word according to their use and
function in a sentence (sometimes they are
shortened to the last syllable of the entry plus
the inflectional ending), such as the past, past
and present participle forms of a verb; the
comparative and superlative forms of an
adjective or a an adverb; and the plural form
of a noun.
 derivational
forms: are the different forms
derived from one word. This derivational
process usually entails a change of the
part of speech.
 2)
What morphological information does
your dictionary provide for the following
words:
lullaby, silly, signify, significant
 3)
How many syllables do the following
words have?
afloat
pedagogy
conspicuous
 4)
Where can you break the following
words?
coveralls
creditor
credentialed
credibility
creator
criminology
 5)
What do you think is the usefulness of
syllabification?
 6)
Which words have begin with prefixes?
Interpret, disbelieve, unbelieve, discourse,
incorrect, dismiss, intelligent, misinterpret,
impartial, import, important, illegal,
illegitimate, illusion, imbalance,
irresponsible, incomplete, atypical,
coexist, correspond, abnormal,
abdomen, decode, decide, malfunction,
malice
 7)
What is the plural form of the following
words?
 city, rose, boy, thief, half, hero, photo,
tooth, goose, deer, trout, alumna, matrix,
axis, crisis, automaton, corpus, focus,
stigma, beau, cherub, wheat, son-in-law,
sugar
 8)
What is the singular form of the
following words?
 phenomena, media, alumni, scissors,
millennia, syllabi, tongs, stomata, bureau,
seraphim, cattle, scarves, sheep, oxen,
oats, tweezers
 9)
What is the simple past form of the
following verbs?
 Drive
eat
bite be awake breed
bend cost seek cling fit flee
forsake hurt knit
 10)
What is the present participle form of
the following verbs?
 Lie
 bridge
 Sit
 rise
 show
 11)
What is the masculine form of the
following?
 niece, empress, widow, duck
 12)
What is the feminine form of the
following?
 dog, host, rooster, hero
 13)
H.W
 14) Choose the word with the right prefix:
 a. These people are (disexperienced /
inexperienced / unexperienced).
 b.
They (disagreed / inagreed / unagreed) on
many points.
 c.
They (unapproved / ilapproved/ disapproved)
of the new plan.
 d.
You have to (uncode / decode / miscode) the
coming information.
Phonological information.
 This
kind of information relates to two
aspects: pronunciation and stress
pattern, which are given using special
symbols. Special phonetic symbols
represent the sounds 7 of a word and a
pronunciation key is provided at the
beginning of the dictionary to illustrate
how to pronounce these sounds. Stress is
indicated using a /'/ mark on the
stressed syllable.
Exercises:
 1)
Look at the pronunciation key in your
dictionary and use it as a guide to
pronounce a word your teacher chooses,
paying attention to the stress marks.
 Architect
 Sure
 sigh
 2)
What are the silent letters in the
following words?
 sachet, gristle, bomb, cipher, bustle,
hasten, thought, write, enough, aisle,
plumber , campaign
H.W
 3)
How are the letters written in bold
pronounced in the following words?
 cyst czar cynical cute
 Sachet
much anchovy choose
 Cohesive
cohesion
sure
H.W
 4)
Do the letters written in bold in the
following words sound the same?
 sepia, septic , sequel , sequin
 take , sake, sack, fade
 salute, acute, mute, muse
 6)
How is the [o] in the word "spotty"
pronounced in British and American
English?
 8)
Which syllable is stressed in the
following words?
 afloat
pedagogy
conspicuous
7) Syntactic information
Syntactic information indicates the part
of speech of a word (noun, verb, etc)
and its type (transitive verb, auxiliary,
prefix, suffix) using special labels (n., v, adj,
adv, etc).
 In fact, both syntactic information and
morphological information can be
referred to using one general term:
grammatical information.

 2)
What grammatical information does
your dictionary provide about the word
"continue".
 3)
How many parts of speech does each
one of the following words have?
 Content, contest, continue,
 4)
What is the grammatical pattern in
which the verb "spew" is used as an
intransitive verb?
 5)
Choose:
 a) The police (is / are) investigating the
case.
 b) The (pollutions are/ pollution is) worse
during summer seasons.
8) Etymological information
 Etymological
information shows the history
or origin of a word. It tells you where a
word comes from, which languages
contributed to the development of its
meaning, and how its meaning and form
developed over the years.
The abbreviations are:
 1)
OE = Old English
 2) ME= Middle English
 3) L = Latin
 4) Ofr- OF = Old French
 5) It. = Italian
Exercise:
 Where
from?
 capo
 fine
 infant
 Risqué
 risotto
do the following words come
9) Semantic information
 Semantic
information relates to the
following aspects:
 a) Meaning: one or many senses or
definitions are provided for any word.
They are usually numbered and grouped
to show their relationships with each
other.
 b)
Synonyms and antonyms. Some
dictionaries list the synonyms of a word
and may present a brief discussion of the
differences between them. Some
dictionaries include antonyms also.
Synonyms are the words which have
similar meanings and antonyms are words
which are opposite.
 c)
Collocations, idioms, and phrasal
verbs: Some dictionaries indicate the
words which collocate with the
headword, or the idioms or phrasal verbs
in which the headword appears.
Exercises:
 1)
How many meanings does your
dictionary give for the following words.
 Consultation
 overdue
 2)
Paraphrase the following sentences
using simpler words:
 a) You are requested not to import
innocuous products.
 b)
He was able to remain imperturbable
even under the most chaotic
circumstances.
3) Choose the appropriate words:
 a)
What the president said is just an
(illusion / allusion) to the expected
change.
 b) Lawyers should remain (uninterested
/disinterested) throughout their cases.
 c) You will find a (disused / misused) car in
the garage. Nobody has used it for years.
 d) The government abolished that law
(altogether / all together).
 e) She has a (course / coarse) hair.
 4)
Complete with an appropriate
preposition:
 a) They will advise you to hold
………buying new equipment until the
prices go down.
 b) They started to argue about something
but they suddenly broke ……. when they
heard that noise.
 5)
What do the idioms or phrasal verbs
mean in the following sentences?
 b) Why do they keep banging on about
globalization?
 c) They tried to convince him, but to no
effect.
 6)
Give two adjectives that collocate with
the word guess.
10) Pragmatic information
 Pragmatic
information relates to how
words are used. This includes register
information, style, and usage. Usage
labels indicate the appropriate (or, in
some cases, inappropriate) use of a
particular meaning of a word (e.g.,
nonstandard, colloquial, informal, slang,
dialect, archaic, vulgar, British, and
obsolete.)
Exercise:
 Exercise:
 1)
What usage label is given for the
following words?
 alas ……………, exult …………..., fatty
acid…………., git…………..,
goodie…………, gaga…….…..,
gaiety…………….., girdle…………………,
lughole………………..
 2)
What would people say in everyday
English: to have guests for dinner OR to
have people over for dinner?
11) Helping aids:
 Helping
aids: includes the following:
 a) Examples: are provided to show how a
word is used.
 b) Illustrations and Graphics. Some
dictionaries include illustrations (usually
photographs or line drawings, sometimes
charts) to help clarify the meaning of
certain words or to put them in context.
 c)
Cross-reference: is used to avoid
repeating information. If the meaning of a
word is similar to a word that has been
defined, the reader is asked to refer back
to that word:
 featheredge: see deckle edge
Translators and monolingual
dictionaries
 Although
translators' work involves dealing
with two languages, they sometimes
need to consult monolingual dictionaries
for various reasons.
 The basic need is to check the different
senses of a word, especially when this
word is used in an unfamiliar context.
 To
illustrate this, look at the following
phrase, which is a book title, and its
translation: The Politics of Linguistics, and
the translation is . ‫السياسة في علم اللغة‬
 Most Arab translators take it for granted
that politics is used to refer to any
government activities, international
political relations, or the like.
 The
translation we have here is a case in
point. Yet a diligent translator would have
doubts about the meaning of politics
considering the context in which it
appears.
 To resolve this uncertainty, one is advised
to refer to a monolingual dictionary. The
following senses are listed in the American
Heritage Dictionary:
 On
close examination, the last sense is the
one used in the above phrase: "internally
conflicting interrelationships among
people in a society".
 The above translation is an inaccurate
one because of its implications: how is
politics viewed or defined or dealt with in
linguistics.
A
translator may also check a
monolingual dictionary to see how a word
is used in case dictionaries of usage or
collocations did not help.
 Monolingual dictionaries may help by
giving examples, showing the differences
between synonyms, or by devoting
special sections to collocational and
grammatical patterns of the word usage.
 There
may be a need as well to check the
meanings of certain expressions such as
idioms or phrasal verbs if specialized
dictionaries are not available.
General exercises:
 1)
What kind of dictionaries are these?
Collocation, general monolingual,
specialized, general bilingual, bilingual
specialized, Arabic monolingual,
synonyms, production dictionary?
Syllabification
semantic
Etymology
Stress-pronunciation
synonym
Exampl
e
Cross reference
Inflected forms
Derivative forms
 4)
Following are five entries from five
different dictionaries. Compare between
them using the following table.
6) What is the difference
between the following:
 missus
/ missis
 nucleus / nuclei
 numeral/ numerical
 duke / duchess
 materialist / materialistic
 ornament / ornamental
 audible / inaudible
 author / authoress
 hero / heroine
 ox / oxen
8) Examine the following entry then answer
the questions that appear next to it.









a) What is the 1st origin of the word wish?
b) What is the simple present form of wish?
c) What is the simple past?
d) What is the past participle?
e) What is the compound word that appears in
the entries shown?
f) Which is grammatically correct to say: I wish I
was a bird OR I wish I were a bird?
h) Give a synonym for the word wish.
i) Does this dictionary use cross references?
j) Give two derivatives of wish.
9) Examine the following entry,
then state if the following
statements are true or false.
in·flam·ma·ble \in'flæməbəl\ adj [Middle English, liable to inflammation,
from Medieval Latin nflamm bilis, from Latin nflamm re, to inflame; see
inflame]
1. Easily ignited and capable of burning rapidly; flammable. See Usage
Note at flammable.
2. Quickly or easily aroused to strong emotion; excitable. in·flam'ma·bil'i·ty
n. in·flam'ma·ble n.
in·flam'ma·bly adv.
a) This entry uses cross reference.
b) The entry provides five forms of the word inflammable.
c) The prefix in- in this word means not.
d) Inflammable has five syllables.
e) The a in 2nd and 3rd syllables in inflammable sounds
the same.





f) French contributed to the development of
inflammable.
g) Inflammable is the opposite of flammable.
h) People can be described using the
adjective inflammable.
i) Inflammable can be used as a noun or an
adjective.
j) The third syllable is stressed in inflammable.
10) Examine the following entry, then
state if the following statements are true
or false.


in·fin·i·tive \in'finətiv\ n [C] technical in grammar, the
basic form of a verb, used with 'to' in English.
in·fin·i·tude \ in'finətju:d $ -tu:d\ n [singular, U] formal
a number or amount without limit: the vast infinitude
of space.
a) The plural of infinitude is infinitudes.
b) the word infinitive can be found in a religious text.
c) infinitude has only one pronunciation.
d) infinitive does not have a plural form.
following words according to
what is shown between square
brackets:




entirety [adjective]………………………….
entomology [noun]………………………………
forbid [present participle]……………………….
forecast [past participle] ………………………..
late (adj.)
[comparative]………………………..late (adv.)
[superlative]……………………………….
ethical [comparative]…………………………
die [simple present] ……………………………….
12) What is wrong with the translation of the following
sentence? Explain.
Don’t worry. He'll keep it under his hat.
‫ال تقلق فسوف يبقي األمر تحت قبعته‬


13) Examine the entry of the verb guard then provide
the following: a synonym, a phrasal verb, an adverb
that collocates with it, a preposition that can be used
with it.

14) Give a compound word that has the word guard.

15) Look up the word gynaecology . What kinds of
information are provided in this entry.
 16)
What is the meaning of the verb
reverse in the following sentence: He
reversed his car into a side road? What is
the American synonym of this verb?
 17)
What is the plural of the noun reveille?
 18)
How many stress patterns does the
noun reveille have? What is the
difference between them?
 19)
Does the present participle of the verb
revel have alternative spellings? Indicate.
 21)
Give two nouns that collocate with
the noun revenge.
 22) Is the verb revalue transitive or
intransitive? Is it used in active or passive
structures?
 23) The synonym of returnable is
…………..………… and the antonym is
..……………….…….
 24) What is the American form for Rev?
 25) If you want to examine all the
synonyms of the verb revere, under which
word can you find them?21

26) What usage label is given for the verb revere?

27) Give four derivative forms for the verb revere
(a noun, two adjectives, and an adverb).

28) Can the following sentence ‫أراد أن يجري بحثه‬
‫في المعمل‬be translated as: He wanted to make his
research in the lab? Why? Suggest another
translation if you think that this translation is
inappropriate.

29) Which of the following expressions are typical
in everyday English:
a) This problem (relates to / has to do with) what
happened last week.
b) They (stayed / remained) loyal to him.
c) No more milk (remained / was left) in the fridge.



 30)
What does your dictionary say about
these two sentences where the word
"since" is used: Which one is correct and
who uses them?
 a) It is a long time since I saw grandma.
 b) It has been a long time since I saw
grandma.
 32) How frequently is the verb "sit" used in
English? How did you know?

33) What does the idiom "to sit on the fence"
mean in the following sentence: He was
asked to express his opinion but he preferred
to sit on the fence? How did you find that
out?

34) What are the silent letters in "sleigh"?
35) What does the adjective "single" mean in
the sentence: This building is for single persons
only?
