[Corpora-List] Quotation (lexicography)

[Jim Fidelholtz]

Hi, All,

Laura's comment (quote) is no doubt true. Nevertheless, I have no doubt
that, if we examine the particular practice of each lexicographer (or, say,
the OED) and rank all their headwords from the largest number of numbered
'senses' down to 1, that this will correlate (p <  .0...01 or, colloquially,
'*very* significantly'), whatever test you use, with the order
most-to-least-frequent. I haven't actually done this bit of research, but if
it turns out this way (as I'm sure it will, or, perhaps, as has been shown
by someone, at least for some lexicographers), then *this* is an important
fact that must be explained by lexicologists. My personal favorite for the
principal explanation is metaphor, but it will not be easy to make a
convincing case for that.

Jim

On Tue, Sep 7, 2010 at 8:49 AM, John F. Sowa <sowa at bestweb.net> wrote:

> On 9/7/2010 4:01 AM, Laura Lofberg wrote:
>
>> someone has said 'a word has as many meanings as a lexicographer cares
>> to perceive'
>>
>
> Alan Cruse coined a good word for the phenomenon:  microsense.
>
> From his _Glossary of Semantics and Pragmatics_, p. 108:
>
>  "The microsenses of a word are distinct readings that behave in some
>  respects like ambiguous readings, but which, unlike the latter, can
>  be subsumed under an inclusive reading.  An example of a word with
>  microsenses is _ball_.  There are different sorts of ball, but in
>  normal use, only one of these is intended..."
>
>
> http://books.google.com/books?id=v72E26s6JTkC&pg=PA109&lpg=PA109&dq=cruse+microsense&source=bl&ots=WHH9WQDxIR&sig=8yLs84qg4DO01sPNqe82BtZkS48&hl=en&ei=fz-GTLzSKIKBlAfw3uCyDw&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=6&ved=0CDUQ6AEwBQ#v=onepage&q&f=true
>
> John Sowa
>
>
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-- 
James L. Fidelholtz
Posgrado en Ciencias del Lenguaje
Instituto de Ciencias Sociales y Humanidades
Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, MÉXICO
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