<META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=utf-8">
<html xmlns:o="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:office" xmlns:w="urn:schemas-microsoft-com:office:word" xmlns="http://www.w3.org/TR/REC-html40">
<head>
<meta name=ProgId content=Word.Document>
<meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 11">
<meta name=Originator content="Microsoft Word 11">
<link rel=File-List href="cid:filelist.xml@01C405C0.62B957B0">
<!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
<o:DoNotRelyOnCSS/>
</o:OfficeDocumentSettings>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:WordDocument>
<w:SpellingState>Clean</w:SpellingState>
<w:GrammarState>Clean</w:GrammarState>
<w:DocumentKind>DocumentEmail</w:DocumentKind>
<w:EnvelopeVis/>
<w:ValidateAgainstSchemas/>
<w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>false</w:SaveIfXMLInvalid>
<w:IgnoreMixedContent>false</w:IgnoreMixedContent>
<w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>false</w:AlwaysShowPlaceholderText>
<w:Compatibility>
<w:UseFELayout/>
</w:Compatibility>
<w:BrowserLevel>MicrosoftInternetExplorer4</w:BrowserLevel>
</w:WordDocument>
</xml><![endif]--><!--[if gte mso 9]><xml>
<w:LatentStyles DefLockedState="false" LatentStyleCount="156">
</w:LatentStyles>
</xml><![endif]-->
<style>
<!--
/* Font Definitions */
@font-face
{font-family:Wingdings;
panose-1:5 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0;
mso-font-charset:2;
mso-generic-font-family:auto;
mso-font-pitch:variable;
mso-font-signature:0 268435456 0 0 -2147483648 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-alt:"\FF2D\FF33 \660E\671D";
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:modern;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:-1610612033 1757936891 16 0 131231 0;}
@font-face
{font-family:"\@MS Mincho";
panose-1:2 2 6 9 4 2 5 8 3 4;
mso-font-charset:128;
mso-generic-font-family:modern;
mso-font-pitch:fixed;
mso-font-signature:-1610612033 1757936891 16 0 131231 0;}
/* Style Definitions */
p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal
{mso-style-parent:"";
margin:0cm;
margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:12.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";}
a:link, span.MsoHyperlink
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
a:visited, span.MsoHyperlinkFollowed
{color:blue;
text-decoration:underline;
text-underline:single;}
tt
{font-family:"Courier New";
mso-ascii-font-family:"Courier New";
mso-fareast-font-family:"MS Mincho";
mso-hansi-font-family:"Courier New";
mso-bidi-font-family:"Courier New";}
span.EmailStyle18
{mso-style-type:personal-reply;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;
mso-bidi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Arial;
mso-ascii-font-family:Arial;
mso-hansi-font-family:Arial;
mso-bidi-font-family:Arial;
color:navy;}
span.SpellE
{mso-style-name:"";
mso-spl-e:yes;}
span.GramE
{mso-style-name:"";
mso-gram-e:yes;}
@page Section1
{size:612.0pt 792.0pt;
margin:72.0pt 90.0pt 72.0pt 90.0pt;
mso-header-margin:35.4pt;
mso-footer-margin:35.4pt;
mso-paper-source:0;}
div.Section1
{page:Section1;}
/* List Definitions */
@list l0
{mso-list-id:1461848755;
mso-list-template-ids:28762000;}
@list l0:level1
{mso-level-number-format:bullet;
mso-level-text:\F0B7;
mso-level-tab-stop:36.0pt;
mso-level-number-position:left;
text-indent:-18.0pt;
mso-ansi-font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:Symbol;}
ol
{margin-bottom:0cm;}
ul
{margin-bottom:0cm;}
-->
</style>
<!--[if gte mso 10]>
<style>
/* Style Definitions */
table.MsoNormalTable
{mso-style-name:"Tableau Normal";
mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0;
mso-tstyle-colband-size:0;
mso-style-noshow:yes;
mso-style-parent:"";
mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt;
mso-para-margin:0cm;
mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt;
mso-pagination:widow-orphan;
font-size:10.0pt;
font-family:"Times New Roman";
mso-ansi-language:#0400;
mso-fareast-language:#0400;
mso-bidi-language:#0400;}
</style>
<![endif]-->
</head>
<body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=blue style='tab-interval:36.0pt'>
<div class=Section1>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>Wouldn’t it be that the
question underlying this whole issue is that we don’t really know what a
monolingual dictionary is for? Apart from the evident answers, I mean. We
obviously don’t know all the words in our own language and occasionally we
stumble on a word we don’t understand. Personally, I have two mother
tongues, Dutch and French, and every once in a while I have to look up a word I
don’t know. <span class=GramE>More in French than in Dutch, because I
read more literature in French.</span> But, on the whole, I hardly ever use the
Robert or the Van Dale. But in any case, I would never look up a word like
‘cow’ or ‘bull’ in a monolingual dictionary, not in
Dutch or French<span class=GramE>,<span style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>for</span>
obvious reasons, and not in any other foreign language, because in that case,
Japanese for instance, I would not understand a monolingual dictionary and I
would only understand it if the learning of words like ‘cow’ and ‘bull’
would be so far away I couldn’t even remember how and when I learned
them. So, in Japanese, I use a bilingual dictionary. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>So I use a monolingual
dictionary when it is my mother <span class=GramE>tongue,</span> and a
bilingual one when it’s not. I have never, ever, had any problem because
of the, slightly stale, theory that there is no one-to-one correspondence
between two languages. The context clarifies it all. <span class=GramE>So much
for decoding.</span> As for encoding, I had to write my PhD in English, of which
I had, and have, only a limited command. In spite of the fact that the subject
was, in part, ‘Learner’s Dictionaries’, I don’t
remember ever to have been helped out by one of them. I already knew words like
‘cow’ and ‘bull’, and words like ‘abide’ or
‘indulge’ which I remember caused me troubles, would be explained
in the bilingual dictionaries I’d consult and ‘the rest is corpus’.
I could imagine that would be useful for speakers of languages such as <span
class=SpellE>Kaxinaua</span> or <span class=SpellE>Guarani</span>, or any
language with no decent bilingual English dictionary, speakers who would at any
rate be fluent enough to understand a definition in a Learner’s
Dictionary. <span class=GramE>An unlikely, but possible situation.</span> A Learner’s
Dictionary is a ‘universal bilingual dictionary’ since it
translates one kind of English/German/Japanese/French (and that’s about
it) into another kind of English/etc. As for ‘native speaker monolingual
dictionaries’, they have undoubtedly a cultural use –you
can’t imagine a ‘civilised’ language without its dictionary—,
and a practical use when we talk about difficult words (“for the more-knowing
women, and the less knowing-men”, as the saying used to go), but to pretend
you try to define words like ‘cow’ and ‘bull’ in a book
with the intention of explaining what these ‘things’ are to people
who wouldn’t have a clue seems to me like one of the best concealed
pieces of hereditary-lexicographic-bad-faith there is. One pristine example of a
monolingual dictionary, the <span class=SpellE>Crusca</span>, defined a ‘horse’
as “animal <span class=SpellE>notissimo</span>, e <span class=SpellE>di</span>
<span class=SpellE>gran</span> <span class=SpellE>generosità</span>.” In
other words: “don’t come and tell us you don’t know what a
horse is!” <span class=GramE>Which is quite sensible.</span> If words like
‘horse’, ‘cow’ −“</span><font
color=midnightblue><span style='color:midnightblue'>La <span class=SpellE>femmina</span>
del <span class=SpellE>bestiame</span> <span class=SpellE>boccino</span>”−
and ‘<span class=SpellE>bull’−“Propriamente</span>, <span
class=SpellE>il</span> <span class=SpellE>maschio</span> <span class=SpellE>delle</span>
<span class=SpellE>bestie</span> vaccine, serve a far <span class=SpellE>razza</span>”−
</span></font></font><span lang=EN-GB style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>were
listed in la <span class=SpellE>Crusca</span> it was because it was a way to delimit
the ‘realm’ of the language, if this is understandable in English,
– i.e. this is Italian, that is not--, and to allow the authors-lexicographers
to maintain an intelligent conversation, between gentlemen readers and writers,
displaying a maximum of erudition and wit. The entries ‘cow’ and ‘bull’
are sprinkled with literary and mythological citations. <span class=GramE>(A
tradition which, as we know, <span class=SpellE>Covarrubias</span> and Johnson
were to follow.)</span><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>So the definition of what a ‘cow’
and a ‘bull’ is, is an existential question, not first a
lexicographical one. Lexicographers have been side-tracked by statesmen who
wanted to unify the language and centralize the country, and which had little
to do with ‘explaining’ words to readers. <span class=GramE>(Having
said that, I must admit that the first edition of the <span class=SpellE>Académie</span>
mentions ‘foreigners eager to learn French’ as a possible
audience.)</span><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>In my opinion, the circularity
of definitions is a problem only for lexicographers at work, not for the dictionary
audience. It is an interesting academic problem, but its hypothetic future
solution will not make dictionaries any better from a user point of view.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span lang=EN-GB
style='font-size:12.0pt;mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'>To state the problem as being
one of choosing between defining a ‘thrush’ as a ‘<span
class=SpellE>turdus</span> <span class=SpellE>turdus</span>’ or ‘bull’
as a ‘male cow’ is, in my modest opinion, misleading, since it
states the difficulty as being a practical one, one of solving a problem a
specific audience would have, whereas it is a purely speculative one. I can’t
imagine a concrete dictionary user looking up a word like ‘cow’ in
a monolingual dictionary just to know what a ‘cow’ is. A situation like,
for instance, someone coming across the word ‘cow’ in a sentence
like “</span><strong><b style='mso-ansi-font-weight:normal'><i><font
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-weight:normal;mso-bidi-font-weight:
bold;font-style:italic'>Did you know that cows love cereal, just like you?”</span></font></i></b></strong><strong><b
style='mso-ansi-font-weight:normal'><font face="Times New Roman"><span
style='font-weight:normal;mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>
wondering what a ‘cows’ would be? <span class=GramE>Highly unlikely.</span>
All this reminds me of a story by Borges in which, if I remember well, Chinese
cartographers discuss on what the best map would be, concluding they should
make one exactly the size of what they would like to chart: the size of the
world itself.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></strong></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><strong><b style='mso-ansi-font-weight:normal'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:normal;
mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>I would wholeheartedly
agree with Patrick when he asks what’s wrong with a circular definition. <span
class=GramE>Nothing at all.</span> It’s all about “classifying clouds
by their shapes” anyway, as Wittgenstein would say. <span class=GramE>A
very legitimate occupation for lexicographers trying to master their trade as
best as possible, and for philosophers or semanticists.</span><o:p></o:p></span></font></b></strong></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><strong><b style='mso-ansi-font-weight:normal'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:normal;
mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>To ask what someone would
prefer, a definition A or a definition B, <span
style='mso-spacerun:yes'> </span>is a question which should be answered by
means of philosophical, logical, semantic arguments, any arguments, except
practical ones, because they will only divert our attention from what really is
at stake. In a dictionary, definitions that ‘explain’ are a minority
because only difficult, infrequent words can be explained. The rest can only be
‘shown’ by means of words, or by means of images, or translated. In
this sense I think Patrick will surely agree with the title of one of <span
class=SpellE>Ramesh</span> <span class=SpellE>Krishnamurty’s</span>
papers: The corpus ‘is’ the dictionary.<o:p></o:p></span></font></b></strong></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><strong><b style='mso-ansi-font-weight:normal'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:normal;
mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;mso-bidi-font-style:italic'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></b></strong></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><strong><b style='mso-ansi-font-weight:normal'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt;font-weight:normal;
mso-bidi-font-weight:bold;mso-bidi-font-style:italic'>Philippe <span
class=SpellE>Humblé</span></span></font></b></strong><span lang=EN-GB
style='mso-ansi-language:EN-GB'><o:p></o:p></span></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=2 color=navy face=Arial><span style='font-size:
10.0pt;font-family:Arial;color:navy'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
</div>
<br>
<!-- |**|begin egp html banner|**| -->
<table border=0 cellspacing=0 cellpadding=2>
<tr bgcolor=#FFFFCC>
<td align=center><font size="-1" color=#003399><b>Yahoo! Groups Sponsor</b></font></td>
</tr>
<tr bgcolor=#FFFFFF>
<td align=center width=470><table><tr><td align=center><font face=arial size=-2>ADVERTISEMENT</font><br>
<IFRAME SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adi/N3349.yahoo1/B1282054.27;sz=300x250;code=18634;dcopt=rcl;click=http://rd.yahoo.com/SIG=12c7pivgl/M=274551.4550177.5761904.1261774/D=egroupweb/S=1709195911:HM/EXP=1078910548/A=2019528/R=0/SIG=10ojdo0km/*;ord=1078824148371878?" WIDTH=302 HEIGHT=252 MARGINWIDTH=0 MARGINHEIGHT=0 HSPACE=0 VSPACE=0 FRAMEBORDER=0 SCROLLING=no BORDERCOLOR='#000000'>
<SCRIPT language='JavaScript1.1' SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/adj/N3349.yahoo1/B1282054.27;abr=!ie;sz=300x250;code=18634;dcopt=rcl;click=http://rd.yahoo.com/SIG=12c7pivgl/M=274551.4550177.5761904.1261774/D=egroupweb/S=1709195911:HM/EXP=1078910548/A=2019528/R=1/SIG=10ojdo0km/*;ord=1078824148371878?">
</SCRIPT>
<NOSCRIPT>
<A HREF="http://rd.yahoo.com/SIG=12c7pivgl/M=274551.4550177.5761904.1261774/D=egroupweb/S=1709195911:HM/EXP=1078910548/A=2019528/R=2/SIG=1417pphsg/*http://ad.doubleclick.net/jump/N3349.yahoo1/B1282054.27;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300x250;code=18634;dcopt=rcl;ord=1078824148371878?">
<IMG SRC="http://ad.doubleclick.net/ad/N3349.yahoo1/B1282054.27;abr=!ie4;abr=!ie5;sz=300x250;code=18634;dcopt=rcl;ord=1078824148371878?" BORDER=0 WIDTH=300 HEIGHT=250 ALT="Click Here">Click Here</A>
</NOSCRIPT>
</IFRAME>
</td></tr></table></td>
</tr>
<tr><td><img alt="" width=1 height=1 src="http://us.adserver.yahoo.com/l?M=274551.4550177.5761904.1261774/D=egroupweb/S=:HM/A=2019528/rand=522863538"></td></tr>
</table>
<!-- |**|end egp html banner|**| -->
<!-- |**|begin egp html banner|**| -->
<br>
<tt><hr width="500">
<b>Yahoo! Groups Links</b><br>
<ul>
<li>To visit your group on the web, go to:<br><a href="http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/">http://groups.yahoo.com/group/lexicographylist/</a><br>
<li>To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to:<br><a href="mailto:lexicographylist-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com?subject=Unsubscribe">lexicographylist-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com</a><br>
<li>Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to the <a href="http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/">Yahoo! Terms of Service</a>.
</ul>
</tt>
</br>
<!-- |**|end egp html banner|**| -->
</body>
</html>