relative roots

[dcyr at YORKU.CA]

Hi Jim, Monica et al.

Just to let you know, talking about Micmac dictionaries, that our Metallic
Mìgmaq-English Reference Dictionary finally came out in December 2005.  It
includes 11,000 Mìgmaq headwords, with definitions in English (not mere
translations,) a lot of them containing encyclopaedic content. There is also a 
CD in the back cover of the book which allows for complete and easy search both
in the Mìgmaq and the English fields. We've made it as user friendly as
possible, especially for the Mìgmaq users, which means using as little as
possible of linguistic jargon and when we did we explained it as clearly and
simply as possible in the introduction.

As for the topic of the on-going discussion, we used the idefinite form but most
of the time we aslo provided a contextual example in English. Most of the
examples were produced through discussions between the three authors, the first
of them being a fluent Mìgmaq speaker. Here it what it gives.

alàsêk, i.i.v. it is going about (e.g. a rumor, a story).

alìbuluen, a.i.v. you are riding on the back of some animal (e.g. a horse).

ankunàdùn, t.i.v. you cover something  (e.g. with a blanket or tarpaulin).

alapchult,t.a.v. you have someone in hand (e.g.you are guiding a blind person). 
Lit. 'he/she is under your control'.

We used the same technique for word formatives. E.g. :

-atkwik, w.f., pl. -atkwigl. Nav. a productive suffix (n.i.) which pertains to
the size of waves on the water (e.g.   maqatkwigl  high waves, màmunatkwigl,
very high waves).



You can order it at

www.ulaval.ca/pul

for $37,45 CDN plus shipping cost.

And for those who would not yet be aware, there is already an online dictionary
of Mìgmaq made by Mìgmaq people from Listuguj. You can see it at

www.mikmaqonline.com

Enjoy!

Danielle E. Cyr







Quoting FIDELHOLTZ_DOOCHIN_JAMES_LAWRENCE <jfidel at SIU.BUAP.MX>:

> Hi, Monica & all,
>
> The various comments to this thread have been enlightening and useful.  I
> have two more to make, the first minor and on thread: the solution to many
> quandaries will often have to do with the intended audience: the wider it
> is, the more user-friendly the dictionary should be.  In planning my future
> Micmac dictionary, I hope to be able to make it available online with
> different 'buttons' for different users, including different orthographies,
> if that issue hasn't settled out by then, as well as, I now see, for users
> with different degrees of knowledge about dictionaries as such. In fact, in
> dictionaries in general, there are very few really user-friendly ones,
> especially if we take into consideration the fact that *very* few people
> (and this includes me and probably most of us) read very carefully prefatory
> and explanatory material in dictionaries, a task which is often quite
> rewarding, actually.  This won't stop me from putting a probably grizzlily
> long introductory explanatory preface, but I won't harbor too many illusions
> about its impact.
>
> The other comment is about the mechanics of the list.  From a comment of
> yours and vague recollections, you may be the list 'monitor'.  In any case,
> take a look at my 'subject' line.  I think it is important that all messages
> on this list should go out with this or a similar (?maybe in small letters?)
> prefix, so as to clearly distinguish it from that hated and
> too-easily-deleted spam.
>
> Comparison: [ALGONQDICT] relative roots
>            [algonqdict] relative roots
>
> Of course, I recognize all the names in this thread so far, but new people
> can always come in to the group, and I'd be likely to just eliminate their
> messages semi-automatically.  The prefix should be an easy change to
> implement; if for some reason it isn't, most ITs should be able to guide you
> (or the pertinent person) in how to do it.
>
> Jim
>
>
> Monica Macaulay escribió:
>
> > Posoh fellow dictionary makers...
> >
> > We're currently going through the archaic English words that  Bloomfield
> > used in his Menominee lexicon and trying to come up with  more colloquial
> > defintions.  While thinking about 'thus' and what we  could replace it
> > with, I realized that there's an intersecting  problem, which is due to
> > the fact that all of the verbs that have  'thus' in their definition - not
> > surprisingly - have the relative  root aeN- in them.  We were going to
> > change 'thus' to 'in that  manner' but it occurs to me that that might be
> > interpreted as a  complete definition.  So, take the verb that Bloomfield
> > translates as  'it glows thus' - we could change it to 'it glows in that
> > manner' but  a dictionary user might not realize that it's a verb that
> > needs a  manner adverb - and that using it without one would actually be
> > ungrammatical to a native speaker.  Conversely they might not realize  how
> > to translate it in a sentence; i.e. if you used this verb with  'brightly'
> > the meaning would be 'it glows brightly' - NOT 'it glows  brightly in that
> > manner' or something like that.  Have any of you  wrestled with this one
> > and come up with a good solution?
> >
> > A related issue of course is how much info one puts into a dictionary
> > without crossing over the line into being a grammar.  I think we  probably
> > are all making somewhat different decisions about where to  draw that
> > line, and I haven't decided yet where it would be drawn in  a case like
> > this.
> >
> > - Monica
> ...
>
>
> James L. Fidelholtz
> Posgrado en Ciencias del Lenguaje, ICSyH
> Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla     MÉXICO
>