[Lexicog] English homonyms

[Mali Translation]

-----Original Message-----
From: Thapelo Otlogetswe [mailto:thaps at yahoo.com]
Sent: Monday, April 26, 2004 8:06 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: RE: [Lexicog] English homonyms

Thapelo,

Would you write tone in Setswana?
I work in an African language in Cote d'Ivoire
where tone has a low functional load. There is
a not too high number of minimal pairs but one
knows from context what is being talked about.
To take your example: in a text mabele (breast)
cannot be mistaken for mabele (sorghum). So tone
is not written in texts, but linguists usually
insist to write it in dictionaries.
What is your solution in Setswana?

Fritz Goerling

It is not clear to me how the matter of homophones is
important in learners' dictionaries. Is it a problem
that the lexicographer is anticipating or it is a real
problem that exists for learners of English? As far as
I know many learners of English will have worse cases
of homonymy, some with tonal complexities in their own
languages. Take for example Setswana where you have
such homographs with different tonal patterns like:

mosimanyana (boy) [tonal pattern: LHLHL]
mosimanyana (small hole) [tonal pattern: LLHHL]

mabele (breasts) [tonal pattern: LHL]
mabele (sorghum) [tonal pattern: LLH]

lela (cry) [tonal pattern: LH]
lela (intestine) [LL]

While it may be important to make a distinction
between homographs as distinct words with a similar
spelling, it is not clear to me why it may be
important to attempt to cross reference them in a
dictionary.

<Thapelo

=====
Thapelo Otlogetswe
University of Brighton
I T R I
Lewes Road, Brighton
BN2 4GJ, England
Tel: (+44) 1273 642912 (office)
(+44) 1273 600052 (home)
(+44) 1273 642908 (fax)
http://www.itri.brighton.ac.uk/~Thapelo.Otlogetswe/




	
		
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