relative roots

[Monica Macaulay]

Danielle,

Congratulations on the dictionary coming out!  It sounds really  
impressive and I'm definitely going to order a copy.

- Monica

On Apr 24, 2006, at 5:29 PM, dcyr at YORKU.CA wrote:

> Hi Jim, Monica et al.
>
> Just to let you know, talking about Micmac dictionaries, that our  
> Metallic
> Mìgmaq-English Reference Dictionary finally came out in December  
> 2005.  It
> includes 11,000 Mìgmaq headwords, with definitions in English (not  
> mere
> translations,) a lot of them containing encyclopaedic content.  
> There is also a
> CD in the back cover of the book which allows for complete and easy  
> search both
> in the Mìgmaq and the English fields. We've made it as user  
> friendly as
> possible, especially for the Mìgmaq users, which means using as  
> little as
> possible of linguistic jargon and when we did we explained it as  
> clearly and
> simply as possible in the introduction.
>
> As for the topic of the on-going discussion, we used the idefinite  
> form but most
> of the time we aslo provided a contextual example in English. Most  
> of the
> examples were produced through discussions between the three  
> authors, the first
> of them being a fluent Mìgmaq speaker. Here it what it gives.
>
> alàsêk, i.i.v. it is going about (e.g. a rumor, a story).
>
> alìbuluen, a.i.v. you are riding on the back of some animal (e.g. a  
> horse).
>
> ankunàdùn, t.i.v. you cover something  (e.g. with a blanket or  
> tarpaulin).
>
> alapchult,t.a.v. you have someone in hand (e.g.you are guiding a  
> blind person).
> Lit. 'he/she is under your control'.
>
> We used the same technique for word formatives. E.g. :
>
> -atkwik, w.f., pl. -atkwigl. Nav. a productive suffix (n.i.) which  
> pertains to
> the size of waves on the water (e.g.   maqatkwigl  high waves,  
> màmunatkwigl,
> very high waves).
>
>
>
> You can order it at
>
> www.ulaval.ca/pul
>
> for $37,45 CDN plus shipping cost.
>
> And for those who would not yet be aware, there is already an  
> online dictionary
> of Mìgmaq made by Mìgmaq people from Listuguj. You can see it at
>
> www.mikmaqonline.com
>
> Enjoy!
>
> Danielle E. Cyr
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Quoting FIDELHOLTZ_DOOCHIN_JAMES_LAWRENCE <jfidel at SIU.BUAP.MX>:
>
>> Hi, Monica & all,
>>
>> The various comments to this thread have been enlightening and  
>> useful.  I
>> have two more to make, the first minor and on thread: the solution  
>> to many
>> quandaries will often have to do with the intended audience: the  
>> wider it
>> is, the more user-friendly the dictionary should be.  In planning  
>> my future
>> Micmac dictionary, I hope to be able to make it available online with
>> different 'buttons' for different users, including different  
>> orthographies,
>> if that issue hasn't settled out by then, as well as, I now see,  
>> for users
>> with different degrees of knowledge about dictionaries as such. In  
>> fact, in
>> dictionaries in general, there are very few really user-friendly  
>> ones,
>> especially if we take into consideration the fact that *very* few  
>> people
>> (and this includes me and probably most of us) read very carefully  
>> prefatory
>> and explanatory material in dictionaries, a task which is often quite
>> rewarding, actually.  This won't stop me from putting a probably  
>> grizzlily
>> long introductory explanatory preface, but I won't harbor too many  
>> illusions
>> about its impact.
>>
>> The other comment is about the mechanics of the list.  From a  
>> comment of
>> yours and vague recollections, you may be the list 'monitor'.  In  
>> any case,
>> take a look at my 'subject' line.  I think it is important that  
>> all messages
>> on this list should go out with this or a similar (?maybe in small  
>> letters?)
>> prefix, so as to clearly distinguish it from that hated and
>> too-easily-deleted spam.
>>
>> Comparison: [ALGONQDICT] relative roots
>>            [algonqdict] relative roots
>>
>> Of course, I recognize all the names in this thread so far, but  
>> new people
>> can always come in to the group, and I'd be likely to just  
>> eliminate their
>> messages semi-automatically.  The prefix should be an easy change to
>> implement; if for some reason it isn't, most ITs should be able to  
>> guide you
>> (or the pertinent person) in how to do it.
>>
>> Jim
>>
>>
>> Monica Macaulay escribió:
>>
>>> Posoh fellow dictionary makers...
>>>
>>> We're currently going through the archaic English words that   
>>> Bloomfield
>>> used in his Menominee lexicon and trying to come up with  more  
>>> colloquial
>>> defintions.  While thinking about 'thus' and what we  could  
>>> replace it
>>> with, I realized that there's an intersecting  problem, which is  
>>> due to
>>> the fact that all of the verbs that have  'thus' in their  
>>> definition - not
>>> surprisingly - have the relative  root aeN- in them.  We were  
>>> going to
>>> change 'thus' to 'in that  manner' but it occurs to me that that  
>>> might be
>>> interpreted as a  complete definition.  So, take the verb that  
>>> Bloomfield
>>> translates as  'it glows thus' - we could change it to 'it glows  
>>> in that
>>> manner' but  a dictionary user might not realize that it's a verb  
>>> that
>>> needs a  manner adverb - and that using it without one would  
>>> actually be
>>> ungrammatical to a native speaker.  Conversely they might not  
>>> realize  how
>>> to translate it in a sentence; i.e. if you used this verb with   
>>> 'brightly'
>>> the meaning would be 'it glows brightly' - NOT 'it glows   
>>> brightly in that
>>> manner' or something like that.  Have any of you  wrestled with  
>>> this one
>>> and come up with a good solution?
>>>
>>> A related issue of course is how much info one puts into a  
>>> dictionary
>>> without crossing over the line into being a grammar.  I think we   
>>> probably
>>> are all making somewhat different decisions about where to  draw  
>>> that
>>> line, and I haven't decided yet where it would be drawn in  a  
>>> case like
>>> this.
>>>
>>> - Monica
>> ...
>>
>>
>> James L. Fidelholtz
>> Posgrado en Ciencias del Lenguaje, ICSyH
>> Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla     MÉXICO
>>

Monica Macaulay
Department of Linguistics
University of Wisconsin
1168 Van Hise Hall; 1220 Linden Drive
Madison, WI  53706
phone (608) 262-2292; fax (608) 265-3193
http://ling.wisc.edu/~macaulay/monica.html