[Lexicog] Percentage of idioms vs single words

[Kenneth C. Hill]

I detect a common confusion in this interchange, the loss of the
distinction between "the lexicon" as a theoretical construct (alongside
"the grammar, the syntax, the phonology, the onomasticon," etc.) and "a
dictionary" as a specific reference work. A dictionary is motivated by the
perceived needs of the prospective users as well as by the author's
perhaps idiosyncratic interest in including certain information. In the
Hopi Dictionary, for example, there is a lot of stuff that properly
belongs in the grammar, but it was thought to be useful to remind the
potential user of various details of grammatical behavior within the body
of the dictionary. And the grammar we provided was a bare-bones practical
sketch. The Hopi Dictionary mixes encyclopedic knowledge in with
everything else in a somewhat unprincipled way simply because that
information was considered of potential interest to the reader and,
anyway, we weren't about to write a separate encyclopedia. Items appear in
the dictionary that pertain to the theoretical onomasticon but, I guess,
only where the onomasticon and the encyclopedia overlap: selected
placenames and a couple of personal names with historical importance.

I urge the distinction between the dictionary-as-theoretical-construct and
the dictionary-as-practical-reference-work. Most of us, I believe, are
concerned overwhelmingly with the latter. I know some others have pointed
this out, but I hereby put my two cents in.

--Ken Hill

A few quotations that led up to the statement above:

... what does it mean to be lexicalized?

... what goes in a dictionary and what goes in an encyclopedia?


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