[Lexicog] folk taxonomies and universal semantic domains within lexical software

[Wayne Leman]

Following is a slightly revised copy of a message I just sent to a colleague who is on the FieldWorks (FW) team. The issues are relevant to each of us who attempt to discover indigenous semantic domains:

___, after you skimmed my database before attempting import to FW FLex, you mentioned that my semantic domains did not exactly fit Ron Moe's list. Here is why: As Ken Pike used to emphasize, there are etic and emic approaches to language data. Ron Moe's approach to lexical research is one of the best I have ever seen. His approach can gather lexical data in a short period of time what many people used to take years to collect. (Of course, one can also benefit greatly from other traditional approaches to lexical data gathering, including text collection and gleaning those texts for new lexical items.) It is appropriate that language software be keyed to the good semantic domains that Ron has developed after careful research of his own, in consultation with others working in lexicography. (I've had helpful exchanges with Ron, whose work I appreciate very much.)

But for any dictionary, we need to ask who the audience for it is and whether we want etic or emic categories to be displayed. *IF* a dictionary is intended to be used by the native speakers of a language, it is wise to shift from using any universal etic semantic domain list to the semantic folk taxonomies of those native speakers. As you probably know, different people in different cultures have differents semantic domains. So, for display, such as in Lexique Pro (a fantastic program for use by native speakers for displaying dictionary data), there is wisdom in using native (emic) semantic domains, rather than those of a more universal etic set of domains such as those in Ron's DDP (http://www.sil.org/computing/ddp/).

FLex (part of FW) should allow for using Ron's domains for guiding semantic category discovery, but it should also allow for converting semantic domains to those actually used by a language/culture group.

We have tried hard over the past 30 years to work toward using Cheyenne semantic domains so that Cheyennes can locate lexical items within the semantic domains that they actually use.

Wayne
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Wayne Leman
Cheyenne dictionary online:
http://www11.asphost4free.com/cheyennedictionary/default.htm
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