[Lexicog] Re: Bai variant words

[David Frank]

Rudy Troike, you are quite right that there is an option that I hadn't taken
into account for dealing with variant forms in a dictionary. Thank you for
pointing that out. The option of listing the variant forms without saying
one is standard and the other is a variant ought to be seriously considered,
if the dictionary compiler deems it could be appropriate for a given
situation.

I believe there are language situations where it would be either
advantageous or necessary to say that one set of forms is standard and other
sets are variants, however, even though that might seem less democratic. It
sounds like in the case of Bai, the options are either to list only the
forms of the standard dialect, or list the standard form and variants. In
answer to Bryan Allen's original question, I would encourage him to include
the variant forms in his dictionary, and not just the "standard" ones. If he
feels he can list the variant forms all as co-equals (against the preference
of his colleague), then that is great. Otherwise he can cite the forms that
they consider standard and add to that the variant forms.

I don't mean to be prescriptive, and that is why I am happy to have variant
spellings of a word allowed in a phonemically-based orthography.

I personally don't see any problem in American dictionaries listing _color_
as the preferred form, and listing _colour_ as the variant form appropriate
for Canada or the UK. (In this case we are just talking about spelling and
not pronunciation. But in our culture we do have a concept of words
spelled/spelt properly and improperly.) I would expect a British or Canadian
dictionary to do the opposite.

If you don't have "preferred" forms, then a disadvantage is that you would
have to have full entries for each of the variants, rather than having a
minor entry sometimes, which points to a major entry.

-- David Frank



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