Boris IomdinRussian Language Institute,

Russian Academy of Sciencesiomdin@ruslang.ru

Lecture 8. PlanPassive and active (production) dictionariesExisting production dictionariesRussian Production DictionaryPrinciples of RPDScheme of the lexical entry in RPDPolysemy blocksEncyclopaedic informationA sample entry: rana ‘wound’The scientific value of RPD

Passive vs. active dictionariesPassive dictionaries: more traditional, used to help

readers understand any given text, have to be very large (up to 450 000 words in English dictionaries)

Active (productive) dictionaries: used to help speakers use words correctly. Contain considerably fewer words (the active vocabulary of educated speakers has around 10 000 words) but much more linguistic information

Ideally, the linguistic information in a productive dictionary should correspond to the language competence of exemplary speakers

Existing production dictionariesMacmillan English Dictionary for Advanced LearnersOxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary of Current

EnglishLongman Dictionary of Contemporary EnglishMaurice Davau, Marcel Cohen, Maurice Lallemand.

Le dictionnaire du français vivantRaoul Mortier. Dictionnaire Quillet de la langue

française (l’art d’écrire et de bien rédiger)Le Petit Robert de la langue françaiseGroβwörterbuch Deutsch als Fremdsprache

Purely practical, very little underlying linguistic theory

Longman dictionaryDeveloped in agreement with the grammar

(University Grammar of English, in part written by the same authors)

Based on a large text corpus (≈300 000 000 words)Includes a defining vocabulary (2000 most

frequent and simple English words). Only these words used in the explications, and only in self-explanatory meanings. However, no syntactic restrictions

Includes “language notes” (mostly on pragmatics)Hundreds of illustrations (pictures)

Russian Production DictionaryNo production dictionaries of

Russian published as yetThe first one: a project led by Jurij

Apresjan since 2006The prospect (general layout and

sample entries) in printThe wordlist currently contains 10

000 words

Principles of the dictionarySimplicity and clarity of formal

languagesExplicitness of all information Unification (consistency) Individualization

Formal languageDefinitions should be

(1) complete, non-redundant and not tautological, but (2) formulated so that average users with no linguistic background could easily understand them

In complicated cases, a trade-off between scientific accuracy and accessibility is to be achieved

Explicit informationIf a word has a linguistically

relevant feature, it has to be explicitly described in the lexical entry, even if it might be deduced from other information present in the entry

UnificationIf the lexical entry of a word X

contains information L, the same information should be present in the lexical entry of the word Y, if Y belongs to the same lexicographic type and has the same feature

IndividualizationThe consistency principle in

description of words of the same type is implemented until the lexical material itself does not resist the unification

Individual features of every word have higher priority than its typical features

Individualization: exampleAlmost all Russian verbs of iterative

locomotion have two meanings: (1) ‘occupation, activity’: Oni xodili <begali, …> po dvoru‘They were walking <running, …> in the

backyard’(2) ‘action, bidirectional movement’: Oni kazhdyj den’ xodili <begali, …> za

pochtoj‘Every day they went <ran, …> for mail’

Individualization: exampleConsistency principle: all verbs of this

type have these two meaningsHowever: brodit’ ‘to wander’ does not

include the idea of purposeful movement (one of the main components of the bidirectional meaning):

*On kazhdyj den’ brodil za xlebom‘Every day, he wandered to buy bread’

Hence: the second meaning is not ascribed to brodit’

System vs. usageThe language system includes all

lexical entities that could in principle be constructed according to the rules of the language, e.g. words formed by analogy

Usage includes only lexical unities that are indeed used by the speakers of the language

System vs. usageThree kinds of phenomena are

linguistically interesting: 1) Those present both in system and in

usage2) Those present in system but not in usage3) Those already present in usage but not

yet in system

All words from (1) are included

System vs. usageWords absent in usage generally not includedExample: X–zhdy ‘X times’ adverbs formed

from numeralsThe system includes odnazhdy ‘once’, dvazhdy

‘twice’, trizhdy ‘thrice’, chetyrezhdy ‘four times’, pjatizhdy ‘five times’, shestizhdy ‘six times’, semizhdy ‘once’, vos’mizhdy ‘eight times’, ….

The usage, however, has only the first fourHence, the rest should not be in the dictionary

System vs. usageWords of the third type: mistakes or

innovations? Open question

Scheme of the lexical entryEntry (name of the lexeme)Grammatic informationTypical examplesExplication (and comments)Syntactic informationCollocations Illustrations from literary textsSynonyms, analogues, conversives,

antonyms, derivates (when available)

Polysemy blocks: VYJTI1.1. ‘on foot, to move outside’: vyjti iz komnaty

‘to go out of a room’1.2 ‘to move outside’: sudno vyshlo iz bukhty

‘the ship sailed out of the bay’1.3 ‘to set out, depart’: polk vyxodit zavtra

‘the regiment moves out tomorrow’2 ‘to cease to be located somewhere’: vyjti iz

tjur’my‘to come out of prison’

…

Polysemy blocks: VYJTI…3.1 ‘to cease to be part a or member’: vyjti iz komissii

‘to leave a committee’3.2 ‘to cease to be in a given state’: vyjti iz

povinovenija‘to get out of control’

3.3 ‘to cease to do’: vyjti iz boja ‘to leave the field of battle’

4 ‘to come to an end, run out’: xleb ves’ vyshel‘all bread was used up’

…

Polysemy blocks: VYJTI…5.1 ‘to come, appear’: vyjti na rabotu

‘to come to work’5.2 ‘to appear’: vyjti na aekrany

‘to be released, go to air’5.3 ‘to receive access’: vyjti na zamministra

‘to obtain access to the deputy ministry’6 ‘to enter into matrimony’: vyjti zamuzh

‘to get married (of a woman)’…

Polysemy blocks: VYJTI…7.1 ‘to turn into, become’: vyjti v generaly

‘to become a general’7.2 ‘to have the makings of’: iz nego vyjdet general

‘he has the makings of a general’7.3 ‘to begin to exist’: iz aetoj zatei nichego ne

vyjdet‘nothing will come of this venture’

7.4 ‘to turn out to be’: vstrecha vyshla interesnoj‘the meeting turned out to be interesting’

…

Polysemy blocks: VYJTI…8.1 ‘to result, occur’: vyshla neprijatnost’

‘some trouble resulted’8.2 ‘to turn out’: vyxodit, vy pravy

‘it turns out that you are right’9 ‘to face a certain direction’: okna vyxodjat v

sad‘the windows look out over the garden’

Encyclopaedic informationkarta 2.1 ‘playing card’ Value: tuz ‘ace’, korol’ ‘king’, dama ‘queen’,

valet ‘jack’ [court cards]; desjatka ‘ten’, devjatka ‘nine’, …, trojka ‘three’, dvojka ‘two’ [plain cards]; kozyr’ ‘trump’; dzhoker ‘joker’

Suits: bubny ‘diamonds’, piki ‘spades’, trefy ‘clubs’, chervi ‘hearts’

Occupations: igra v karty ‘playing cards’, pas’jans ‘solitaire’, gadanie na kartax ‘card reading’, kartochnye fokysy ‘card tricks’

Language specific expressionsfigurnye karty – court cards – Bilder – les

hautes carteskoloda kart – pack of cards – Kartenspiel – jeu

de cartestasovat’ (karty) – shuffle – mischen – battre

<mêler>sdavat’ (karty) – deal – geben – distribuer

<servir>snimat (karty) – cut – abheben – couper…

Sample entryRANA ‘wound’, by M.Ja.GlovinskajaDefinition: ‘an object on the body part P2

of a living being P1 which is a result of rather serious injury to the skin and tissues of P2 caused by an outer force or object P3, usually in the form of a hole, a cut or a tear, which is bleeding or has bled’.

Genus proximumA wound is conceived of above all as a material objectSimilar to: bruises, shiners, soresDistinct from: dislocations, sprainings, fractures which cannot be thought of as objects

Type of injuryA wound is an injury to the skin AND tissues of a body partSimilar to: sores Distinct from: scratches (injuries to the skin), shiners (injuries to the tissues), sprains (injuries to the ligaments), and fractures (injuries to the bones)

Attending circumstancesA wound usually implies bleeding at the moment of observation or prior to itIn this respect it is different even from sores, let alone all other injuries

Place of injuryA wound may be located anywhere on the

human body Similar to: sores, scratches, shinersDistinct from: contusions which involve

above all the brainSlang: mouse ‘a sore under the eye’;

Russian fonar’ lit. ‘lantern’, fingal

Cause of injuryA wound is always a result of impact of

some outer force, even when it is received accidentally

Similar to: contusionsDistinct from: sprains, strains, and twists

which may result from excessive tension of some body part

Form of injuryThe form of a wound is not particularly

relevant Similar to: sores and shinersDistinct from: cuts and scratches which

have elongated forms

CollocationsMass of lexically constrained materialTo present it in a unified format, collocations

are ordered by semantic classes which reflect certain pragmatic aspects of the causation, existence, development and cessation of wounds

Collocations(a) APPEARANCE & CAUSATION: green wound;

receive <sustain> a wound, suffer a wound; inflict a wound, rare make a wound;

(b) INSTRUMENT OR IMMEDIATE CAUSE: a bullet <knife, bayonet, shrapnel> wound; a stab <gunshot, operation> wound;

(c) CIRCUMSTANCES: a battle wound;(d) INJURED BODY PART: an abdominal

<stomach> wound; a wound in the shoulder <in the head>; a flesh wound;

Collocations(e) FORM, TYPE & CHARACTER: lacerated

<punctured, incised> wound, jagged wound, perforating wound; open <gaping> wound, contused wound; wound of entry <of exit>;

(f) DEGREE: deep <superficial> wound; slight <light, minor> wound; dangerous <cruel, grievous, serious> wound; mortal <fatal> wound;

(g) STATE: painful <agonizing> wound; cured <uncured> wound;

Collocations(h) PROCESSES IN THE WOUND: the wound is

healing <healing up, healing over>, the wound is overcast, the wound closed <cicatrized, repaired>; the wound is bleeding <festering, is infected>, the wound opened, the wound still rankles;

(i) TREATMENT: cleanse <wash> the wound; reopen the wound; nurse the wound; dress a wound, bind (up) a wound, cure <heal> the wounds; neglect the wound;

(j) CONSEQUENCE FOR THE WOUNDED: recover from the wounds, die from the wounds.

Scientific value of the RPDApart from the practical tasks, an

active dictionary has two scientific functions: It is an integral part of the

theoretical description of the language

Once completed, it can serve as feedback for the correction of the original linguistic theory

Next lecture

Synonymy and its description. New Explanatory Dictionary of Russian Synonyms, its principles and the structure of lexical entries.