[Lexicog] Criteria for example sentences

[Ron Moe]

Mike and Benjamin have been discussing example sentences such as "the dog
barks" and "cast a spell"  (see below). In my list of domains I have a
domain for 'Animal sounds'. I understand that some languages have few words
in this domain. All animals 'cry' or something like that. English has a fair
number of them, many of them restricted to a single species or at least a
very limited set. Cows 'moo', but nothing else does. However I would not
consider "the cow mooed" an idiom. Several very dissimilar animals 'bark'.
So this would be even less likely to be an idiom. However I believe the real
reason these are not idioms is that they belong to an extended set of
phrases consisting of [animal + sound]. It is a very productive set and is
realized by a variety of surface manifestations, "the mooing of the cow,"
"the cow went, 'moo'" etc.

On the other hand a phrase like "cast a spell" belongs to a very limited set
of phrases consisting of [verb + spell] within the domain of witchcraft. We
have "place a hex on," but I can't think of any others off the top of my
head. Perhaps a perusal of the Harry Potter books would turn up more. In
both these examples the verb is not carrying the semantics. One could argue
that the spell travels through the air. At least the movies portray this
happening visually. But a witch does not actually physically place a hex on
the victim. So they would be classic idioms of the type [dummy verb + noun].

So I would consider putting "the dog barks" as an example sentence under
'dog' and 'bark'. But I would make "cast a spell" a separate entry and put
it as a subentry under 'spell'. If I was making an electronic dictionary I
would also put it under 'cast' along with the idioms "cast a ballot" "cast
in one's lot with" and "cast lots". But I think someone has already
mentioned that listing all the [dummy verb + noun] idioms under the verbs
would result in very long lists. So I've come to the conclusion that the
best place for these idioms is under the noun that is carrying the
semantics.

Ron Moe
SIL Uganda

-----Original Message-----
From: Mike Maxwell [mailto:maxwell at ldc.upenn.edu]
Sent: Sunday, March 14, 2004 5:34 PM
To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
Subject: Re: [Lexicog] Criteria for example sentences


MessageBenjamin Barrett wrote:
> I like the suggestion of using a sample sentence such as "the dog
> barks at X", "the telephone rang/I answered the telephone" to inform
> the user of commonly used verbs, though the danger of falling into
> cliches seems real.

To which I had replied:
> My off-the-top reaction to this is that the example sentences
> here belong with the verb, not the noun.  Seals bark, too, as
> do children with the croup (and sometimes bosses).

To which Benjamin Barrett in turn replied:
> What do you think about a noun like spell (as in witchcraft).
> For a beginner's dictionary, it seems like including "cast a spell"
> might be appropriate in the noun entry.

Yes, I think you're right that "cast a spell" would be an appropriate
subentry under the noun "spell".  I'm not sure why I feel differently about
this, unless it has something to do with subjects vs. objects.  Intuitively,
"cast a spell" seems like an idiom (or some other type of fixed expression),
in a way that "the dog barks" does not.

Of course, appeals to my native speaker/ linguist intuition is little help
for those compiling dictionaries in languages of which they are not native
speakers!

    Mike Maxwell




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