The lexicon - encyclopedia interface

2010

Review (English language) of this book; published in: Linguist List 21.936 (25.02.2010) [Open Access]

Machine Translation, 1990

The true, significant elements of language are... either words, significant parts of words, or word groupings." Edward Sapir, 1921. [1:25] "The reader...may not be a word-lover..., However, even if he is not afflicted with this "disease", he will not be able to escape the fundamental insight that the lexicon, lexis, or vocabulary of a language is its most basic level and its most important instrument of communication." Leonhard Lipka, 1990.[2:ix] This paper considers the nature of lexical knowledge and its role in language and information processing. The lexicon is the central component of language and plays a pivotal role in current linguistic theory and, increasingly, in natural language processing systems . The lexicon embodies information about the lexical items of the language and serves as the foundation for morphologic, syntactic, and semantic processing. The differences as well as commonalities among dictionaries, thesauri, and lexicons are discussed, and distinctions between words, lexical items, and terms are drawn. Next, the scope and content of the SPECIALIST lexicon are presented, followed by a discussion of certain writing conventions that can be troublesome for text processing applications. One approach to handling orthographic and other lexical variation is discussed in a section that reports on the design and implementation of the SPECIALIST lexical programs. The paper concludes with a discussion of controlled terminologies for the medical domain. Throughout the discussion, examples are drawn from the SPECIALIST lexicon and from the other UMLS knowledge sources .

Anglia, 2017

In their Preface, Michael Klotz and Thomas Herbst neatly mount the main signposts guiding through the volume. The book is meant to provide a) a linguistic b) introduction to c) English lexicography. Thus, the reader will encounter many notions from linguistic theory, e.g. 'lexeme' (15), 'construction' (116) or 'meronymy' (231). Moreover, it serves as an introduction and as such, does not raise any claims to completeness, however that may be defined in such a vast field as lexicography. The book indeed represents an excellent selection of the classical, fundamental and essential issues in English lexicography, although some recent innovations, i.e. the e-dictionary (r)evolution, receive scant attention (see below). Lastly, and most importantly, the volume focuses on English, in its standard British English variety to be more precise. Given the growing importance of nonstandard and global varieties of English for the development and description of the English language, it is a pity that these aspects are missing, or only addressed marginally as in the case of American English (see below for examples). Nevertheless, the reader embarks on their journey into English lexicography with an informed and clear notion of the book's content and its primary focus as mentioned above. The book is divided into eight chapters, a substantial bibliographic section of the dictionaries and references used (almost 30 pages!), a list of the sources of the illustrations and a useful index. The first, and with seven pages shortest, chapter eases the reader into the field of lexicography by first explaining its often strained but mutually constitutive relationship to linguistics (14-16). The authors explain some fundamental differences in the treatment of language units between the two areas, but also argue in favour of a close connection of the two (14) before introducing the notions 'metalexicography' and 'practical lexicography' (16-17). The chapter concludes with an overview of the aims of the book (18) and remarks regarding the use of citations in the book (18-19). The second chapter continues with an explanation of some core lexicographic notions and concepts (e.g. mono-vs. bilingual dictionaries on pp. 23-24,

Lexikos, 2011

International Journal of Lexicography, 2002

Dictionnaire de noms de marques courants (a`l'usage de publics e´trangers de´sireux d'acce´der a`une forme me´diatique de lexiculture ordinaire). Paris: INaLF-CNRS. Gruaz, C. Dictionnaire synchronique des familles de mots français. [À paraıˆtre]. Jacquenod, R. Nouveau dictionnaire e´tymologique. L'origine de 20 000 mots Français. (Coll. %Les Grands pratiques&.) Paris: Marabout. [À paraıˆtre].

Lexis Bookreview The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2020

This comprehensive encyclopedia is 573 pages long, including a preface, an introductory chapter and 24 more chapters distributed in six parts concerning different topics: history of English, its vocabulary, grammar, spoken and written varieties, use and language acquisition. It is completed by a useful webography and by an essential section on further reading works for each section of the book, that allows to deepen in any of their subjects. Besides, it contains three indexes about linguistic items, authors and topics respectively. The book constitutes a unique reference work on the current knowledge on the various fields of study of English language, and includes a presentation of different aspects of each subfield, together with illustrations, data tables, maps, diagrams and separated panels that include anecdotal or specific cases that exemplify and provide deeper insight on the topic in question.

The lexicon of a language is not an unstructured list of words. In this paper, we exemplify some of the basic conceptual structures that cognitive linguists work with and we discuss their potential applications to lexicographic work. Specifically, we focus on the possible advantages of using cognitive linguistics as a theoretical background in the structuring of entries, meanings, and idioms in dictionaries. In connection with these organizational issues, we discuss the knowledge-based organization of the mental lexicon (known as conceptual frames), and a type of organization of the mental lexicon that seems to be much more characteristic of Hungarian than of English: organization according to certain "root morphemes. " We also deal with the conceptualization of an element within a topic area through another element within the same topic area (known as conceptual metonymy), the conceptualization of a topic area in terms of another topic area (known as conceptual metaphor); and the internal organization of the various senses of a word-concept (known as polysemy). We devote a section to idioms and their role as well as possible arrangement in the dictionary. Such thematic structures have, on the whole, remained outside the focus of everyday lexicographic practice. Here, we hope to demonstrate their importance and usefulness.

Lexicographica, 2018

International Journal of Lexicography, 2024

The dictionary is based on: Hadumod Bussmann Lexikon der Sprachwissenschaft 2nd, completely revised edition in co-operation with and with contributions by colleagues Kröner All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers.