[Lexicog] Discovering the lexicon via semantic domains

[Wayne Leman]

Lexicographers have used a variety of techniques to discover the
words of the lexicon of a language, e.g.

1. combing through vernacular texts (I have heard of one linguist
making a dictionary who would not enter a form in the lexicon until
it was found in a text)

2. trying to match entries in a national language dictionary

3. semantic association through work with semantic domains of the
language

A Cheyenne lady and I used #3 when we made a Cheyenne Topical
Dictionary a number of years ago. Cheyenne language teachers have
found the topical dictionary helpful. But there are many more words
in the language than those we came up with using the particular
semantic domains we investigated.

What are some techniques that you all have found helpful to discover
lexical entries for a language? In particular, how have you increased
the number of lexical entries beyond a typical basic number of forms
based on the semantics of some basic anthropological linguistic check
lists or similar lists?

Although dictionaries for many previously unstudied languages
typically contain 5,000 or so entries, we all know, I think, that the
lexicons of these languages actually contain many more thousands of
entries which are not found in such "basic" dictionaries. Have you
found techniques to successfully get the number of valid lexical
entries up to the neighborhood of 15,000-25,000, esp. within a
relatively short period of research time?

Wayne Leman


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