[Lexicog] Re: Citation forms in Prefixing Languages

[Mike Maxwell]

Ron Moe wrote:
> <snip> ...For a printed dictionary there is
> simply no good solution.

There is a history of this kind of problem with Semitic languages.  I
believe the standard Arabic dictionaries use a root-based approach.  I also
believe they are hard for the average Arabic speaker to use, to put it
mildly.

Bill Poser, who has done considerable work with the Athabaskan language
Carrier, maintains that the proto-Athabaskans sat around the campfire coming
up with ways to make their language difficult for outsiders to learn.
(Navajo is perhpas the best known language in this family.)

If Bill is right, then the proto-Athabaskans must have had considerable
prescience, because not only are Athabaskan languages difficult to learn,
they are perhaps the most difficult languages when it comes to printed
dictionaries.   The problem arises from an apparent intermingling of
derivational and inflectional verbal prefixes (at least in the printed form,
although it's hard to see how one could improve on the way they are
written), coupled with strong morphophonemics.  That is, it's not sufficient
to just strip off all the prefixes: you have to know which ones to strip and
which ones to keep, not to mention figuring out which ones are there in the
form of a single phonological feature (because the phonology has obliterated
them), and then how to put the keepers back together with the root to give
the underlying form of the citation form, and then apply the phonology
again...

I'm hoping that Bill will join the discussion on this list.

Lest there be any doubt, I agree with Ron (and others): there is no good
solution for printed dictionaries (although for prefixing languages,
alphabetizing from the end of the word would not be impossible).

    Mike Maxwell
    LDC
    maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu




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