[Lexicog] Criteria for example sentences

[Mike Maxwell]

MessageBenjamin Barrett wrote:
> I like the suggestion of using a sample sentence such as "the dog
> barks at X", "the telephone rang/I answered the telephone" to inform
> the user of commonly used verbs, though the danger of falling into
> cliches seems real.

To which I had replied:
> My off-the-top reaction to this is that the example sentences
> here belong with the verb, not the noun.  Seals bark, too, as
> do children with the croup (and sometimes bosses).

To which Benjamin Barrett in turn replied:
> What do you think about a noun like spell (as in witchcraft).
> For a beginner's dictionary, it seems like including "cast a spell"
> might be appropriate in the noun entry.

Yes, I think you're right that "cast a spell" would be an appropriate
subentry under the noun "spell".  I'm not sure why I feel differently about
this, unless it has something to do with subjects vs. objects.  Intuitively,
"cast a spell" seems like an idiom (or some other type of fixed expression),
in a way that "the dog barks" does not.

Of course, appeals to my native speaker/ linguist intuition is little help
for those compiling dictionaries in languages of which they are not native
speakers!

    Mike Maxwell




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