[Lexicog] deciding on the citation form

Tue Feb 27 02:48:21 UTC 2007

Dear Piotr:

I do not know books or articles on the subject you are interested in. However from my life time experience using the dictionaries of many language, I can tell you that for most of modern Indo-European languages the dictionaries give the verbs in the form of infinitive. If the forms of passive and reflexive verbs differ the
base verb, they are also given in separate entries.
The noun is usually given in Nom.Sg. If there are nouns which used only in Plural forms, there are special entries for them with samples.
Dictionaries Latin and Greek traditionally give the verbs and nouns with the several basic forms. In the case of Latin are given usually four forms:
1. Praes. Ind. Act. 1 p.; 2. Perf. 1 p.; 3. Supinum; 4. Inf.
Sample:  amo, amavi,  amatum, amare  (to love)
                   video,-di, visum,  videre          (to see)
                capio, -ui, capitum, capere     (to capture, to grab, to grasp)
                audio,-ivi, -itum, -ire      
                fero, tuli, latum, ferre               (to carry)
                    eo, ii (or ivi), itum, ire              (to go)

For nouns are usually 2 forms are given. 
1. Nom.Sg.; 2. Gen.Sg.
Sample: Schola, -ae  (school)
                verbum, -i     (word)
             Orator, -oris   (orator)
                corpus, -oris  (body)
In many cases if you do not know the second form, you will not have a clue to the declension  (thus Nom.Sg. Juppiter -- Gen. Sg. Jovis; Nom. Sg. bos, Gen. Sg. bovis; and now you can understand a proverb: Quod licet  Jovi, non licet bovi)
This is a scholastic tradition to present classical lexics in the form which give an idea of derivation and word change (conjugation and declension). 

Ancient Greek has the infinitive (usually ends with -ein)
Greek dictionaries traditionally give less forms than Latin dictionaries
example the lexical entry for verb paideuō (only one form is given); but for nouns and adjectives they give two or three forms depending  on necessity. 

About all Semitic languages, including Hebrew, Aramaic, Arabic, etc.
the verbs are usually given in Perf. 3 Sg. not because they do not have infinitives.
As matter of fact they do. But this form Perf. 3 Sg. is the most simple (i.e. basic) form which is the closest to the consonant root which is the center of structure of Semitic word.

Thus from the root KBL the verb shown in dictionaries is kibbel (he received).
But the root serves as the nest for entire group of words which are derived from it.
So under the nest KBL you will find all other forms like
kabbala - tradition  (which is something that one receives from a predecessor)
mekabbel - Act. Pt. (one who receives, receiving)
le-kabbel - Inf. (to receive)
mukbal - limited, restricted (Pt. of Hof`al  enlarged  form)
mitkabbel - acceptable (Pt. of Hitpa`el enlarged form; something which may be received) 
and all other words which are derived forms from the same consonant root.
In Arabic there are about 40 different forms of Infinitive (native term: masdar).
It is frequently used as an abstract name

For Semitic grammar in the Middle Ages the Arabs and the Jews used templates for all the possible grammatical forms. They usually used the verb with the meaning 'to do, to make', which is in Arabic Fa`ala and in Hebrew Pa`al. They made systematic list of all possible basic and derived forms: for Arabic (e.g.
fa`ala, fa`aala, faa`il(un), mufa`il(un), fa`aal(un), muf`al(un), etc. [sometimes more than 50 morphological templates] and were giving the corresponding form from each consonantal root in the dictionaries. This scholastic form is still used both in native Semitic grammar and lexicography.

Many words in different Semitic languages are formed in a similar way and from similar roots, but there are a lot of semantic changes. There are less changes between Hebrew and Aramaic than betwin Arabic and Hebrew. Amharic and other Semitic languages of Africa are semantically removed the most and include a lot of non-Semitic  lexics. 

Sincerely,

Dr. Hayim Y. Sheynin 

Non vitae sed scholae discimus.

Piotr Banski <bansp at venus.ci.uw.edu.pl> wrote: Greetings, Listers,

I was wondering if you can point me to a book or a paper that discusses
the rationale behind the lexicographer's choice of the citation form for
the given lexeme class of the given language. That may easily turn out
to be several papers or books and I'll be grateful for any hint you can
provide.

For example, with verbs you usually go for the infinitive, unless it's,
say, Greek (at least Modern Greek), where there are no infinitives,
Bantu, where you don't want all verbs sorted under, say, "k", English,
where infinitives are not marked morphologically, or Latin (why? greater
homonymy among infinitives than among 1Sg forms?). I seem to vaguely
recall some discussion of Latin citation forms by Peter Matthews, but I
can't find it anymore -- can anyone please refresh my memory on this or
at least point me to the appropriate source?

Similarly with nouns, where you probably usually want to go for NomSg,
but then there's Latin, where (I'm not sure) you use {NomSg, GenSg}
pairs -- is that correct? Or do you just go for NomSg, treating the
GenSg ending as the first bit of grammatical information? (And is there
any practical difference between these approaches apart from having to
allow for a larger number of homonyms on the latter?)

Then there's Hebrew (and, I guess, Arabic, Amharic, possibly Semitic in
general (?)), where I don't know what happens. Just consonantal roots?
That would mean rather complicated entries. (But Amharic indirectly
marks vowels in its syllabary, so there things should be different,
shouldn't they.) I'd appreciate a pointer or two, similarly for
polysynthetic languages, where my imagination simply fails.

I can imagine this evolving into some on-list discussion, but if I get
off-list mails, I promise to prepare a summary of them.

Thanks in advance,

  Piotr Banski

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