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<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I agree entirely with Ron Moe’s comments. Even very simple words
need examples. I would only add this: everything depends on the aim of your
dictionary. I think it’s very different if you’re writing a
dictionary for ‘decoding’ or for ‘encoding’. Computers now
allow us to make this distinction practically possible.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>From a decoding point of view, you hardly need an example since you
obviously took the word you don’t know from some kind of context which
will help you to choose among different translation alternatives, or different
definitions. ‘Lead’ has a number of different meanings, but the
fact that you’re reading a book on Writing techniques will induce you to
understand ‘lead’ as ‘first part of an article’ or something
of the kind and not ‘a kind of metal.’ As Ron states, however,
“I am sometimes unsure what sense a definition is referring to until I
read the example sentence.” So am I.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>If, on the contrary, you aim primarily at helping your audience with
encoding, then the amount of examples you need goes from, say, 1 or 2 to any
amount. In my experience, as someone who has to write in a foreign language
almost every day, you need a lot of examples for every word, even for monosemous
words like, say, ‘atrioventricular block’ or ‘forceps’.
You need at least to know what are the verbs acceptable with these nouns, and
probably which nouns can be subject and object of these words. As Ron Moe shows
on the basis of our recent discussion, even words like ‘rock’ and ‘dog’
need examples. At least if you want to use them productively. To merely understand
them, even within an expression, is usually not too difficult. As we know since
“Metaphors we live by”, basic metaphors follow the same lines in most
languages.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>But, coming back to Mike’s first question, as a general rule, and
according to my experience, you need examples most for verbs. I remember ‘indulge’
(which I cited in a previous e-mail) for which I needed probably 30 examples
before getting it right. And even then it wasn’t entirely
‘appropriate’. Adverbs I would say are rather straightforward, and
I don’t remember I ever had any serious problems with them, certainly not
when using a bilingual dictionary. It is true though that monolingual
dictionaries cannot help but giving a disastrous treatment to adverbs, prepositions
and the like. In a bilingual dictionary a would simply say (Spanish)
‘por’ means ‘by’ except in these cases (when they are
accompanied by these words …). <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Another parameter to take into consideration is the mother tongue of your
audience. For Japanese learners, ‘simple’ prepositions like
‘in’, ‘next to’ etc. are difficult because the way you
use Japanese prepositions is totally different. A Dutch speaker will need no
examples at all, or very few (as Ron Moe has put us on the alert). <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>To speak about 30 examples for a verb would have seemed to be
practically absurd a few years ago. We know it isn’t anymore.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>In the case of Learner’s dictionaries, I see a peripheral
problem when it comes to choosing examples: the fact that dictionaries are
mostly made by native speakers. Corpus analysis can only partly eliminate this
problem since there’s always someone who has to make the choice. Some
might find this a strange observation but I think it’s part of the reason
why (at least) learner’s dictionaries fail to deliver. Always in my
opinion, of course. Native speakers have a rather questionable idea of what the
difficulties of their own language are and, as part of that, of the frequency
of words. As I had the experience some time ago, for an English-speaking person
‘confide’ is used just as frequently as ‘have
confidence’. My gut feeling tells me it’s not. This implies that
you need more examples to explain to your audience how to use
‘confide’ than how to use ‘have confidence in’ since
involuntary exposure to the former will be much smaller than to the latter. <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Philippe Humblé<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>humble@cce.ufsc.br<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>PS. Without wanting to be intrusive, I wrote a little book on this
subject (“Dictionaries and Language Learners”). Since my publisher
wanted to charge me a hefty fee (which I couldn’t pay) for even
mentioning the existence of the book on his website, I don’t see any
problem in sending it in PDF to anyone interested.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'><o:p> </o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I would agree with all Mike's points except the last. The
recent discussion of even such obvious nouns as 'bull' or 'dog' show a range of
applicability which is far from predictable. The metaphorical use of animal
terms indicates that our conception of an animal is far from trivial and goes
far beyond the scientific name. A dog is more than a member of the species
canis familiaris. We say, "He's as faithful as a dog," and "He's
nothing but a dirty dog." Or, "He's as strong as an ox," and
"He's as dumb as an ox." In fact these uses may be more common than
literal references to oxen.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Even 'rock' needs to be carefully defined and illustrated. 'Rock' and
'stone' are not exact synonyms and the difference needs to be made explicit.
"We built our house on a rock." *"We built our house on a
stone." "I cut my hand on a sharp rock." *"I cut my hand on
a sharp stone."<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>English has lots of verbal nouns that are noun in part of speech but
whose semantics refer to events, processes, and states. Most of us would agree
that these need to be illustrated as much as a verb. But there are other nouns
that are on the borderline between semantic "verbs" and semantic
"nouns" (if you will). For instance 'growth' in one of its senses
refers to a part of your body which is not normal. "The doctor removed a
growth on my back that proved to be benign." It is as much a thing as your
nose, but is called a 'growth' because it grows abnormally. The example
sentence illustrates several features of the semantics and usage. 1) It is
external to the skin or an internal organ (on something). 2) It is abnormal. 3)
It is feared to be cancerous. 4) Doctors often deal with them. 5) The verb used
to indicate surgically cutting it off is 'remove'.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>So I would prefer the general rule: "Give an illustrative sentence
for every word unless you cannot find one that is non-trivial and informative.
Of course we have to be concerned about size restrictions, but I would prefer a
short illustrative phrase to nothing at all. I appreciate a fine tuned
definition, but I love a good illustration. When reading entries with multiple
senses in a monolingual English dictionary, I am sometimes unsure what sense a
definition is referring to until I read the example sentence.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Ron Moe<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>SIL, <st1:place w:st="on"><st1:country-region w:st="on">Uganda</st1:country-region></st1:place><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal style='margin-bottom:12.0pt'><font size=3
face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:12.0pt'>-----Original
Message-----<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>From:</span></b> Mike Maxwell
[mailto:maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu]<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Sent:</span></b> Thursday, March 11, 2004
10:15 AM<br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>To:</span></b> <st1:PersonName w:st="on">lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com</st1:PersonName><br>
<b><span style='font-weight:bold'>Subject:</span></b> [Lexicog] Criteria for
example sentences<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>What criteria do y'all suggest for determining whether an entry (or
sub-entry) should include example sentences?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>I suspect the answer is the same for monolingual and bilingual
dictionaries, although I'm interested in the bilingual case.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>When I've reviewed bilingual dictionaries for publication, I have
claimed that every 'adverb', verb and adposition needs (at least one) example
sentence. I have not pushed so hard for example sentences for adjectives
and nouns. My reasoning is as follows:<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>(1) Adverb is a catch-all category. Even if it's broken down into
verbal adverbs vs. sentential adverbs, or locatives vs. temporals vs.
manners..., it's still going to be unclear to the user of the dictionary just
what the behavior of that word is (even if there is a good grammar of the
language). Same goes for minor POSs, like determiners, 'particles' etc.,
although most of these should be reasonably well documented in the grammar.<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>(2) Verbs tend to have complex argument structures, which vary across
languages even for similar meanings. (Cf. 'talk', 'say', 'ask', 'wonder'...
with their counterparts in any other language you may know.) So again,
without example sentences, the user won't know how to use them. (And it
may be necessary to have at least one example for each subcategorization
frame.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>(3) Adpositions usually have a more straightforward grammar, but their
meaning may be unclear (no matter how well you gloss them). So they
should have several example sentences, to (partially) illustrate their range of
meaning. (BTW, there's a fascinating article in the Sept. 2003 issue of
Language on the semantics of spatial adpositions across languages. Should
be required reading for lexicographers.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>(4) Nouns, and to a lesser extent adjectives, tend to have
straightforward grammars and meanings. You don't need an example sentence
to know how to use 'dog' or 'rock'. (Abstract nouns like the infamous
'destruction' are of course exceptions to this.)<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>This is an easy test to make in a computerized way, since it's easy to
pull out all the words of a given grammatical category which do not have at
least one example sentence (or one for every sense of those words).<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'>Comments?<o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> <o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
<p class=MsoNormal><font size=3 face="Times New Roman"><span style='font-size:
12.0pt'> Mike Maxwell<br>
Linguistic Data Consortium<br>
<a href="mailto:maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu"
title="mailto:maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu"><font color=black><span style='color:windowtext'>maxwell@ldc.upenn.edu</span></font></a><o:p></o:p></span></font></p>
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