[Lexicog] bulls, bears and homonyms

[Chaz and Helga Mortensen]

----- Original Message -----
From: "John Roberts" <dr_john_roberts at sil.org>

What do people think about indicating homonyms in a dictionary? Is it
> helpful to the user or not? If you do decide to indicate homonyms, how do
> you distinguish these from polysemy? Has anyone tried any other method of
> indicating homonyms than by numbering?
>
> John Roberts

>From Chaz Mortensen:

In my experience, I first attempted to put all identical forms in the same
entry. One entry, "doya", was an adverb as well as a verb. The adverb
meaning was 'toward the shore/riverbank', from which was derived 'in the
traditional homeland'. The verb meaning was 'to drink'. However, I found
that it was unreasonable to expect the typical (?) Northern Embera to find
the second or third meaning under the first, no matter which order I put
them in. I also realized the stress on the verb was DOya and the adverb was
stressed doYA, further complicating the job of the user. So there are two
entries now.

But then there are verbs which have identical stress and unrelated meanings:
"be" and "grind". These I put in separate entries finally because the "be"
entry had so much material in it that one could not reasonably expect the
user to find anything on "grind".

I use numbers to differentiate the entries.

-Chaz



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