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<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Dear Sebastian,</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Go to http://www.sil.org/computing/ddp/index.htm
for Ron Moe's Dictionary Development Program and you should find all you
need</font>
<br><font size=2 face="sans-serif">Neal</font>
<br>
<br>
<br>
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<td width=40%><font size=1 face="sans-serif"><b>Sebastian Drude <sebadru@zedat.fu-berlin.de></b>
</font>
<br><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Sent by: lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com</font>
<p><font size=1 face="sans-serif">10/07/2005 12:51 AM</font>
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<div align=center><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Please respond to<br>
lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com</font></div></table>
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<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">To</font></div>
<td valign=top><font size=1 face="sans-serif">lexicographylist@yahoogroups.com</font>
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<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">cc</font></div>
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<div align=right><font size=1 face="sans-serif">Subject</font></div>
<td valign=top><font size=1 face="sans-serif">[Lexicog] aiming at
exhaustiveness in eliciting the lexicon of a language</font></table>
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<br><font size=2><tt>Dear lexicographers,<br>
<br>
<br>
I would like to ask you for advice and/or bibliographic references, on
<br>
techniques and methodology in field research that aims at obtaining as
<br>
exhaustive a set of lexical data of a language as possible in a limited
<br>
period of time.<br>
<br>
Besides the obvious methods of (1) using stimuli word lists in other <br>
languages (portuguese) and (2) extracting words from texts, I am <br>
especially interested in (3) associative techniques that make use of the
<br>
network of semantic and associative relations that hold among the <br>
lexical items of any language, or other techniques that help to discover
<br>
even rarely used or quite abstract and relational words.<br>
<br>
Are there any explicit field guides or other concrete instructions you
<br>
know of? I am aware of some works as, for example: (to 1) Studying
and <br>
Describing Unwritten Languages (Bouquiaux and Thomas 1992, french <br>
original 1972) or the exhaustive comparative SAILDP questionnaire for <br>
Latin America elaborated by B. Berlin and T. Kaufmann. Hints to other
<br>
stimuli word lists are also welcome.<br>
<br>
As to (3), what (known to me) comes closest to what I am seeking is:<br>
BEEKMAN, John (1968), "Eliciting vocabulary, meaning, and collocations",<br>
in: Notes on Translation 29:111, reprinted in: Alan Healey (ed)<br>
(1975) Language Learner’s Field Guide, Ukarumpa (PNG): SIL<br>
See also section 8 of<br>
MOSEL, Ulrike (2004): "Dictionary making in endangered language<br>
communication", in: Peter K. Austin (ed) Language Documentation<br>
and Description vol. 2, London: SOAS<br>
<br>
<br>
My background: for some 7 years now, I am conducting field research on
<br>
Awetí, a tupian (but not tupi-guaranian) language in central Brazil. In
<br>
the last years, the focus of my work is on documenting the languages, <br>
that is, I am compiling a large corpus of data, mostly with audio and/or
<br>
video media, with transcriptions and translations. Even not the primary
<br>
objective of my current work, morpho-syntactic analysis is obviously <br>
always going on, but the lexicon is the area I payed comparatively less
<br>
attention to.<br>
<br>
Now I am preparing for a research project that allows me to use the <br>
corpus as a basis for, among other things, a description of the <br>
language, including preparing for the compilation of a dictionary.<br>
<br>
Up to now, I have shoebox databases that contain some 2400 entries as <br>
the result of eliciting basic word lists (usually for comparative aims)
<br>
and thematic word lists (the latter mostly nouns, such as 150 prominent
<br>
cultural items / artefacts, 130 kinship terms, and a total of about 350
<br>
animal terms) as well as the results of glossing some of the texts.<br>
I guess at least about the same amount can be extracted from the texts
<br>
(probably more than 30 hours of transcribed texts, of which about 18 <br>
hours are translated but most are not further unanalyzed).<br>
<br>
Of course, this is only a first step to a more "complete" data
set that <br>
could eventually be published as a dictionary of Awetí (of course, <br>
completeness is always a very relative notion and depends, among other
<br>
things, on decisions like that up to which degree results of productive
<br>
word formation processes such as derivation and composition are to be <br>
included).<br>
<br>
So what is your advice how to proceed, besides exctracing lexical items
<br>
from the texts (and possibly eliciting further stimuli word lists)?<br>
<br>
Thank you in advance for your help.<br>
<br>
Sebastian Drude<br>
-- <br>
| Sebastian D R U D E (Lingüista,
Projeto Aweti / DOBES)<br>
| Setor de Lingüística -- Coordenação de Ciências Humanas
(CCH)<br>
| Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém do Pará -- CNPq
-- MCT<br>
| Cx.P. 399 -- CEP: 66 040 - 170 -- Tel.
e FAX: (91) 274 40 04<br>
| Email: sebadru@zedat.fu-berlin.de +
drude@museu-goeldi.br<br>
| URL: http://www.germanistik.fu-berlin.de/il/pers/drude-en.html<br>
<br>
<br>
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