Linguistics Encyclopedia.pdf

Lexicography
WHAT IS A DICTIONARY?
Lexicographers produce works of several types, e.g. dictionaries, thesauruses, and
glossaries, but this article deals with their most typical product: dictionaries. A
lexicographic dictionary is one which provides lexically relevant information, e.g.
pronunciation and meaning, about lexically relevant units, e.g. words. These lexically
relevant units are displayed in a macrostructure that is a succession of independent
articles, entries, so ordered that any article may be found through an explicitly statable
search procedure, an algorithm. The typical dictionary algorithm, alphabetical order, is
based on the written form of the lexically relevant units rather than on their meaning, and
the typical dictionary entry is semasiological, that is, going from name to notion. By
contrast, the typical thesaurus entry is onomasiological, that is, going from notion to
name.
LEXICALLY RELEVANT UNITS IN
DICTIONARIES
The best-known type of lexically relevant unit is the lexical unit. A lexical unit is a
constituent unit of the lexical system, the vocabulary, of a language; and the best-known
type of lexical unit is the word (see MORPHOLOGY). A lexical unit, a lexeme, is a set
of units of form, morphemes, that represents a set of units of content, sememes. The
morphemic representation of a lexical unit is realized in writing by one or more sets of
graphical units or graphemes, such as letters, and in speech by one or more sets of
phonological units or phonemes (see PHONEMICS). The relation between form and
content can best be understood as a correspondence or mapping. Table 1 shows what
mappings can occur.
As shown in Table 1, encyclop(a)edia and ‘controversy/con’troversy are one lexical
unit
Table 1 Form-content mappings
Mapping Form Content Dictionary entries
Lexical units
One-one penicillin/'peni'silin/ ‘drug x’ 1 1
encyclopaedia, encyclopedia ‘reference book’ 1 1
controversy
/ /
The linguistics encyclopedia 392
ytrewq2007
‘dispute’ 1 1
One-many crane /'krein/ ‘bird x’ 1 1