[Lexicog] Variants

[Kenneth C. Hill]

In the Hopi Dictionary we identified hundreds of variants. A quick selection of all those entries that have "var." in the cross-reference field gives 1503 such entries. Generally we didn't take sides as to which variant was prior and provided a reasonably full entry for each form. A reason for this is that the dictionary largely grew out of examples of usage.

An example of a set of words deemed to be variants is the forms meaning 'seat, chair, something to sit or kneel on' (in alphabetical order): a'atsvewpi (with initial reduplication and the noun suffix -pi), atsvewa (without either reduplication or the noun suffix), and atsvewpi (without reduplication but with the suffix). Perhaps of interest, only the simplest form, atsvewa, underlies the distributive form, aa'atsvewa 'seats in various places' (with a different initial reduplication). Perhaps a distributive form *aa'atsvewpi (from atsvewpi) would sound too much like the variant non-distributive a'atsvewpi and a distributive based on a'atsvewpi would involve double reduplication: *aa'a'atsvewpi. Double reduplication is used in Hopi, but it is very rare.

--Ken Hill

Crockett <asigwan at yahoo.com> wrote:    I have a question about lexical variants. Assuming a dictionary is written
 in one primary dialect, does a variant have to refer only to variant
 spellings of a word from the primary dialect? What if the word from the
 primary dialect is pronounced with a slight difference in a minor dialect?
 Could that not be called a dialectical variant? Or would it have to be
 called a synonym since it is not a variant from the primary dialect? How
 narrow is the term "variant"? How have you used this term "variant" in your
 own dictionaries?
 
 Thanks,
 Dave
 
        

		
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