[Lexicog] lexical relation

Fri May 1 04:54:58 UTC 2009

Ron,

It's so comforting to hear, "this is exactly what you should do"! I don't hear it very often. :-)

I understand your point re. dictionary design--deciding what is wanted at the outset will only help down the track. But I have a practical question: what kind of budget would one need to print a 'traditional' dictionary with semantic domain appendixes at the end? How big would such a dictionary be; how much would the appendixes add? Just curious if you have any experience with printing such a dictionary.

Paul
--- In lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com, "Ronald Moe" <ron_moe at ...> wrote:
>
> Lengosi/Paul wrote:
> 
> "For now I'll probably make some kind of 'catch-all' lexical relation for
> fringe relations like 'slip' / 'slippery'--just to link them--and move on."
> 
>  
> 
> Actually this is exactly what you should do. If the two words are related in
> some systematic way, then by all means use the appropriate lexical relation.
> But if the relation is more complex, then set up some general
> cross-reference, such as "cf - Compare". Please don't be confused by the
> 'Cross References' field which is on the entry level and the 'Lexical
> Relations' field which is on the sense level. Both use the same set of
> lexical relations which can be found in the Lists area under Lexical
> Relations. Both produce cross-references in your published dictionary. (I
> get confused just trying to explain it.)
> 
>  
> 
> The system of semantic domains has three primary purposes. The first is to
> group words that are similar in meaning so that you can investigate them all
> at one time. The second is to include a list of semantic domains as an
> appendix in your published dictionary. Each semantic domain would list all
> the words that belong to the domain. The third is to produce a thesaurus or
> semantically classified dictionary. A thesaurus would just list all the
> words in the domain. A semantically classified dictionary would also
> describe each word.
> 
>  
> 
> I would highly recommend that you use the second option instead of creating
> a lot of lexical relations in your dictionary. So instead of creating the
> synonym set
> big:large:bulky:good-sized:sizable:substantial:huge:massive:enormous:colossa
> l:giant:gigantic:mammoth and cross-referencing each member of the set to all
> the other members, you could merely point the user to the domain '8.2 Big'
> in the appendix, where the user would find all of these words and many more.
> It is fairly easy to produce such an appendix. It is a huge amount of work
> to create the same semantic network using lexical relations. So, yes, your
> simple question has brought you to dictionary design philosophy. It would be
> good for you to decide ahead of time what kind of dictionary you want, so
> that you don't waste a lot of time.
> 
>  
> 
> By the way, you would translate all the domain labels into the vernacular.
> You don't want your vernacular dictionary referring to English domains. So
> instead of referring to '7.2.1.5.1 Slip, slide', you would refer to
> '7.2.1.5.1 Sororo'
> 
>  
> 
> Ron Moe
> 
>  
> 
>   _____  
> 
> From: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
> [mailto:lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com] On Behalf Of lengosi
> Sent: Wednesday, April 29, 2009 2:03 PM
> To: lexicographylist at yahoogroups.com
> Subject: Re: [Lexicog] lexical relation
> 
>  
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> 
> Thanks for your helpful response, Ron. A lot more than I bargained on, but
> it certainly helped lay out the issue(s)! I'm wondering how to apply it,
> though ... All I wanted was a utilitarian means of helping the reader get
> from A to B; i.e., "I know /sororo/ but what was the word for 'slippery'
> again?!" Perhaps this has a lot to do with intended audience--I would expect
> speakers of the language to know the 'pair' (and not even think English
> 'slippery' when associating them)--but language learners / non-language
> speaking users would not be expected to know the pair. But in my (limited)
> experience, even language speaker are keen to point out related words, and
> it's my feeling that this should be reflected somehow in the dictionary.
> 
> At one level, just what /kind/ of relationship the words have is a not as
> important as /that/ they are related--to go to the entry for /sororo/ and
> find reference to /madali/ (and vice versa) is probably more helpful than
> not cross-referencing them at all. But, as you pointed out, determining and
> defining the relationship can be tricky, and it should have fairly wide
> application to be considered useful. So I'm back to where I started--wanting
> to demonstrate the relationship between the words and not quite knowing how
> to represent it. I'm aware of your penchant for semantic domains ;-), but
> even that has its challenges (at least in a dictionary with 'traditional'
> alphabetical layout)--how does the reader connect /sororo/ with semantic
> domain: 3.4.5.6 (completely made up) to /madali/ s.d.: 3.4.5.6? S.d. 3.4.5.6
> is probably opaque to most dictionary readers ... Suddenly what I thought
> was a simple question has brought me to dictionary design philosophy! :-0
> 
> For now I'll probably make some kind of 'catch-all' lexical relation for
> fringe relations like 'slip' / 'slippery'--just to link them--and move on.
> Perhaps I can come back to this some day when I have more time and energy to
> spend on it. :-/
> 
> Paul
> 
> 
> 
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