Specialized Dictionaries

Phraseological dictionaries in England and America have accumulated vast collections of idiomatic or colloquial phrases, pro-verbs and other, usually image-bearing word-groups with profuse illustrations. But the compilers' approach is in most cases purely empiric. By phraseology many of them mean all forms of linguistic anomalies which transgress the laws of grammar or logic and which are approved by usage. Therefore alongside set-phrases they enter free phrases and even separate words.1. The choice of items is arbitrary, based on intuition and not on any objective criteria. Different meanings of polysemantic units are not singled out, homonyms are not discriminated, no variant phrases are listed.

An Anglo-Russian Phraseological Dictionary by A. V. Koonin published in our country has many advantages over the reference books published abroad and can be considered the first dictionary of English phraseology proper. To ensure the highest possible cognitive value and quick finding of necessary phrases the dictionary enters phrase variants and structural synonyms, distinguishes between polysemantic and homonymic phrases, shows word- and form-building abilities of phraseological units and illustrates their use by quotations.

New Words dictionaries have it as their aim adequate reflection of the continuous growth of the English language.

There are three dictionaries of neologisms for Modern English: Two of these (Berg P. A Dictionary of New Words in English, 1953; Reifer M. Dictionary of New Words, N. Y., 1955) came out in the middle of the 50s and are somewhat out-of-date. The third (A Dictionary of New English. A Barnhart Dictionary, L., 1973) is more up-to-date.

The Barnhart Dictionary of New English covers words, phrases, meanings and abbreviations which came into the vocabulary of the English language during the period 1963—1972. The new items were collected from the reading of over half a million running words from US, British and Canadian sources—newspapers, magazines and books.

Dictionaries of slang contain elements from areas of substandard speech such as vulgarisms, jargonisms, taboo words, curse-words, colloquialisms, etc.

The most well-known dictionaries of the type are Dictionary of Slang and Unconventional English by E. Partridge, Dictionary of the Underworld: British and American, The American Thesaurus of Slang by L. V. Berry & M. Den Bork, The Dictionary of American Slang by H. Wentworth and S. B. Flexner.

Usage dictionaries make it their business to pass judgement on usage problems of all kinds, on what is right or wrong. Designed for native speakers they supply much various information on such usage problems as, e.g., the difference in meaning between words like comedy, farce and burlesque, illusion and delusion, formality and formalism, the proper pronunciation of words like foyer, yolk, nonchalant, the plural forms of the nouns flamingo, radix, comman

der-in-chief, the meaning of such foreign words as quorum, quadroon, quatrocento, and of such archaic words as yon, yclept, and so forth., They also-explain what is meant by neologisms, archaisms, and colloquial and slang words and how one is to handle them, etc.

The most widely used usage guide is the classic Dictionary of Modern English Usage by N. W. Fowler. Based on it are Usage and Abusage, 4 Guide to Good English by E. Partridge, A Dictionary of American Usage by M. Nicholson, and others. Perhaps the best usage dictionary is A Dictionary of Contemporary American Usage by B. Evans and C. Evans. (N.Y. 1957).

Dictionaries of word-frequency inform the user to the frequency of occurrence of lexical units in speech, to be more in the corpus of the reading matter or in the stretch of oral speech which the word-counts are based.

Most frequency dictionaries and tables of word frequencies published English-speaking countries were constructed to make up lists of words considered suitable as the basis for teaching English as a foreign language, the so-called basic vocabulary. Such are, e.g., the E. Throndice-dictionaries and M. West's General Service List.

Other frequency dictionaries were designed for spelling reforming, psycholinguistic studies, for an all-round synchronic analysis of mod-English, etc.

In the 50s—70s there appeared a number of frequency dictionaries English made up by Soviet lingo-statisticians for the purposes of automatic analysis of scientific and technical texts and for teaching poses (in non-language institutions),

A. R e v e r s e dictionary is a list of words in which the words are arranged in alphabetical order starting with their final letters.

The original aim of such dictionaries was to indicate words which form rhymes (in those days the composition of verse was popular as a delicate pastime). It is for this reason that one of the most well-reverse dictionaries of the English language, that compiled by John Walker, is called Rhyming Dictionary of the English Language. Nowadays the fields of application of the dictionaries based on the re-order (back-to-front dictionaries) have become much wider. These word-books are indispensable for those, studying the frequency and productivity of certain word-forming elements and other problems of word-formation since they record, in systematic arid successive arrangement all words with the same suffixes and all compounds with the terminal components. Teachers of English and textbook compilers them useful for making vocabulary exercises of various kinds. working in the fields of language and information processing will be supplied with important initial material for automatic translation and programmed instruction using computers.

Pronouncing dictionaries record contemporary pronunciation. As compared with the phonetic characteristics of words by other dictionaries the information provided by pronouncing dictionaries is much more detailed: they indicate variant pronunciations

(which are numerous in some cases), as well as the pronunciation of different grammatical forms.

The world famous English Pronouncing Dictionary by Daniel Jones, is considered to provide the most expert guidance on British English pronunciation. The most popular dictionary for the American variant is A Pronouncing Dictionary of American English by J. S. Kenyon and T. A. Knott.

Etymological dictionaries trace present-day words to the oldest forms available, establish their primary meanings and give the parent form reconstructed by means of the comparative-historical method. In case of borrowings they point out the immediate source Of borrowing, its origin, and parallel forms in cognate languages.

The most authoritative of these is nowadays the newly-published Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology edited by C, T. Onions.

Quite popular is the famous Etymological English Dictionary by W. W. Skeat compiled at the beginning of the century and published many times.

Ideographic dictionaries designed for English-speaking writers, orators or translators seeking to express their ideas adequately contain words grouped by the concepts expressed.

The world famous ideographic dictionary of English is P. M. Roget's Thesaurus of English Words and Phrases.

Besides the most important and widely used types of English dictionaries discussed above there are some others, of which no account can be taken in a brief treatment like this (such as synonym-books, spelling reference books, hard-words dictionaries, etc.).

SOME BASIC PROBLEMS OF DICTIONARY-COMPILING

To get maximum efficiency from dictionaries, to secure all the information afforded by them it is useful to have an insight into the experience of lexicographers and some of the main problems underlying their work.

The work at a dictionary consists of the following main stages: the collection of material, the selection of entries and their arrangement, the setting of each entry.

At different stages of his work the lexicographer is confronted with different problems. Some of these refer to any type of dictionary; others are specific of only some or even one type. The most important of the former are 1) the selection of lexical units for inclusion, 2) their arrangement, 3) the setting of the entries, 4) the selection and arrangement (grouping) of word-meanings, 5) the definition of meanings, 6) illustrative material, 7) supplementary material.

§6. The selection of Lexical Units for Inclusion.

It would be a mistake to think that dictionaries that for inclusion list everything and that the shorter variants are mere quantitative reductions from their basis. In reality only a dictionary of a dead language or a certain historical period of a living language or a word-book presenting the language of some author (called concordance) can be complete as

far as the repertory of the lexical units recorded in the preserved texts goes. As to living languages with new texts constantly coming into existence, with an endless number of spoken utterances no dictionary of reasonable size could possibly register all occasional applications of lexical unit, nor is ft possible to present all really occurring lexical items. There is, for instance, no possibility of recording all the technical terms because they are too numerous and their number increases practically every day (chemical terminology alone is said to consist of more than 400,000 terms). Therefore selection is obviously necessary for all dictionaries.

The choice of lexical units for inclusion in the prospective dictionary is one of the first problems the lexicographer faces.

First of all the type of lexical units to be chosen for inclusion is to be decided upon. Then the number of items to be recorded must be determined. Then there is the basic problem of what to select and what leave out in the dictionary. Which form of the language, spoken or writ-ten or both, is the dictionary to reflect? Should the dictionary contain obsolete and archaic units, technical terms, dialectisms, colloquialisms, and so forth?

There is no general reply to any of these questions. The choice among the different possible answers depends upon the type to which the dictionary will belong, the aim the compilers pursue, the prospective user of the dictionary, its size, the linguistic conceptions of the dictionary-makers and some other considerations.

Explanatory and translation dictionaries usually record words and phraseological units, some of them also include affixes as separate en tries. Synonym-books, pronouncing, etymological dictionaries and some others deal only with words.Frequency dictionaries differ in the type of units included. Most of them enter graphic units, thus failing to discriminate between homographs (such as back n, back adv, back v) and listing inflected forms of the same words (such as go, gone, going, goes) as separate items; others enter words in accordance with the usual lexicographic practice; still others record morphemes or collocations. The number of entries is usually reduced at the expense of some definite strata of the vocabulary, such as dialectisms, jargonisms, technical terms, foreign words and the less frequently used words (archaisms, obsolete words, etc.).

The policy settled on depends to a great extent on the aim of the dictionary. As to general explanatory dictionaries, for example, diachronic and synchronic word-books differ greatly in their approach to the problem. Since the former are concerned with furnishing an account of the historical development of lexical units, such dictionaries as NED and SOD embrace not only the vocabulary of oral and written English, pi the present day, together with such technical and scientific words as are most frequently met with, but also a considerable proportion of obsolete, archaic, and dialectal words and uses. Synchronic explanatory dictionaries include mainly common words in ordinary present-day use with only some more important archaic and technical words. Naturally the bigger the dictionary, the larger is the measure of peripheral words,

the greater the number of words that are so infrequently used as to bemere museum pieces.

In accordance with the compiler's aim the units for inclusion are drawn either from other dictionaries or from some reading matter or from the spoken discourse. For example, the corpus from which the word frequencies are derived may he composed of different types of textual material: books of fiction, scientific and technical literature, newspapers and magazines, school textbooks, personal or business letters, interviews, telephone conversations, etc.

Because of the difference between spoken and written language it is to be remembered in dealing with word-books based on printed or written matter that they tend to undervalue the items used more frequently in oral speech and to overweight the purely literary items.

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§ 7. Arrangement of Entries

The order of arrangement of the entries to be included is different types of dictionaries and even in the word-books of the same type. In most dictionaries of various types entries are given in a single alphabetical listing. In many others the units entered are arranged in nests, based on this or that principle.

In some explanatory and translation dictionaries, for example, entries are grouped in families of words of the same root. In this case the basic units are given as main entries that appear in alphabetical order while the derivatives and the phrases which the word enters are given either as subentries or in the same entry, as run-ons that are also alphabetized. The difference between subentries and run-ons is that the former do include definitions and usage labels, whereas run-on words are not defined as meaning is clear from the main entry (most often because they are built after productive patterns).

Compare, for example, how the words despicable and despicably are entered in the two dictionaries:

COD despicable, a. Vile, contemptible Hence— LY2 adv.

WNWD despicable adj. that is or should be despised; contemptible. despicably adv. in a despicable manner

In synonym-books words are arranged in synonymic sets and its dominant member serves as the head-word of the entry.

In some phraseological dictionaries, e.g. in prof. Koonin's dictionary, the phrases are arranged in accordance with their pivotal words which are defined as constant non- interchangeable elements of phrases.

A variation of the cluster-type arrangement can be found in the few frequency dictionaries in which the items included are not arranged alphabetically. In such dictionaries the entries follow each other in the descending order of their frequency, items of the same frequency value grouped together.

Each of the two modes of presentation, the alphabetical and the cluster-type, has its own advantages. The former provides for an easy finding of any word and establishing its meaning, frequency value, etc. The latter requires less space and presents a clearer picture of the rela

tions of each unit under consideration with some other units in the language system, since words of the same root, the same denotational meaning or close in their frequency value are grouped together.

Practically, however, most dictionaries are a combination of the two orders of arrangement. In most explanatory and translation dictionaries the main entries, both simple words and derivatives, appear in alphabetical order, with this or that measure of run-ons, thrown out of alphabetical order.

If the order of arrangement is not strictly alphabetical in synonym-books and phraseological dictionaries, very often an alphabetical index is supplied to ensure easy handling of the dictionary.

Some frequency dictionaries, among them nearly all those constructed in our country, contain two parts with both types of lists.

§ 8. Selection and Arrangement of Meanings. One of the most difficult problems nearly all lexicographers face is recording the word-meanings and arranging them in the most rational way, in the order that is supposed to be of most help to those who will use the dictionary.

If one compares the general number of meanings of a word in different dictionaries even those of the same type, one will easily see that their number varies considerably.

Compare, for example, the number and choice of meanings in the entries for arrive taken from COD and WCD given below1. As we see, COD records only the meanings current at the present moment, whereas WCD also lists those that are now obsolete.

The number of meanings a word is given and their choice in this or that dictionary depend, mainly, on two factors: 1) on what aim the compilers set themselves and 2) what decisions they make concerning the extent to which obsolete, archaic, dialectal or highly specialized meanings should be recorded, how the problem of polysemy and homo-is solved, how cases of conversion are treated, how the segmentation of different meanings of a polysemantic word is made, etc. It is natural, for example, that diachronic dictionaries list many more meanings than synchronic dictionaries of current English, as they record not only the meanings in present-day use, but also those that have already become archaic or gone out of use. Thus SOD lists eight meanings of the word arrive (two of which are now obsolete and are archaic), while COD gives five.

Students sometimes think that if the meaning is placed first in the entry, it must be the most important, the most frequent in present-day. This is not always the case. It depends on the plan followed by the compilers.

There are at least three different ways in which the word meanings arranged: in the sequence of their historical development (called historical order), in conformity with frequency of use that is with the most common meaning first (empirical or actual order), and in their logical connection (logical order).

In different dictionaries the problem of arrangement is solved in different ways. It is well-accepted practice in Soviet lexicography to follow the historical order in diachronic dictionaries and to adhere to the empirical and logical order in synchronic word-books.

As to dictionaries published in English-speaking countries, they are not so consistent in this respect. It is natural that diachronic dictionaries are based on the principle of historical sequence, but the same principle is also followed by some synchronic dictionaries as well (e.g. by NID and some other Webster's dictionaries).

In many other dictionaries meanings are generally organized by frequency of use, but sometimes the primary meaning comes first if this is considered essential to a correct understanding of derived meanings. For example, in the WCD entry for arrive given below it is the primary, etymological meaning that is given priority of place, though it is obsolete in our days.2

§ 9. Definition of Meanings. Meanings of words may be defined in different ways: 1) by means of definitions that are characterized as encyclopaedic, 2) by means of descriptive definitions or paraphrases, 3) with the help of synonymous words and expressions, 4) by means of cross-references.

Encyclopaedic definitions as distinct from descriptive definitions determine not only the word-meaning, but also the underlying concept.

COD coal n. 1. Hard opaque black or blackish mineral or vegetable matter found in seams or strata below earth's surface and used as fuel and in manufacture of gas, tar, etc. ANTHRACITE, BITUMINOUS COAL, LIGNITE;...

Synonymous definitions consist of words or word-groups with nearly equivalent meaning, as distinct from descriptive definitions which are explanations with the help of words not synonymous with the word to be defined.

For example, in the two entries for despicable given above COD defines the word-meaning with the help of synonyms, while WNWD uses both descriptive and synonymous definitions.

Reference to other words as a means of semantization can be illustrated with the following examples taken from COD:

defense. See defence decrescendo.=diminuendo

It is the descriptive definitions that are used in an overwhelming majority of entries. While the general tendency is the same, words belonging to different parts of speech and to different groups within them have their own peculiarities. Encyclopaedic definitions are typical of nouns, especially proper nouns and terms. Synonyms are used most

often to define verbs and adjectives. Reference to other words is resorted to define some derivatives, abbreviations and variant forms.

Apart from the nature of the word to be defined the type of defini-tions given preference depends on the aim of the dictionary and its size. For instance encyclopaedic definitions play a very important role in unabridged dictionaries (especially those published in America); in middle-size dictionaries they are used for the most part to define ethnographic and historical concepts. Synonymous definitions play a secondary role in unabridged dictionaries where they are used as an addition to descriptive or encyclopaedic definitions, and are much more important in shorter dictionaries, probably because they are a convenient means to economize space.

§ 10. Illustrate Examples It is common knowledge that all dictionaries save those of a narrowly restricted purpose, such as, e.g., frequency dictionaries, spelling books, etymo-logical, pronouncing, ideographic or reverse dictionaries, provide illustrative examples.

The purpose of these examples depends on the type of the dictionary and on the aim the compilers set themselves. They can illustrate the first and the last known occurrences of the entry word, the successive changes in its graphic and phonetic forms, as well as in its meaning, the typical patterns and collocations, the difference between synonymous words, they place words in a context to clarify their meanings and usage.

When are illustrative examples to be used? Which words may be listed without illustrations? Should illustrative sentences be made up, or should they always be quotations of some authors? How much space should be devoted to illustrative examples? Which examples should be chosen as typical?

Those are some of the questions to be considered. In principle only some technical terms that are monosemantic can, if precisely defined, be presented without examples even in a large dictionary. In practice, however, because of space considerations this is not the case. It is natural that the bigger the dictionary the more examples it usually contains. Only very small dictionaries, usually of low quality, do not include examples at all.

As to the nature of examples, diachronic dictionaries make use of quotations drawn from literary sources, while in synchronic dictionaries quoted examples are preferred by big dictionaries, in middle-size dictionaries illustrative sentences and phrases drawn from classical and contemporary sources or those constructed by the compilers are employed.

The form of the illustrative quotations can differ in different dictionaries; the main variation can be observed in the length of the quotation and in the precision of the citation.

Some dictionaries indicate the author, the work, the page, verse, or line, and (in diachronic dictionaries) the precise date of the publication, some indicate only the author, because it gives at least basic orientation about the time when the word occurs and the type of text.

It is necessary to stress the fact that word-meanings can be explained

not only with the help of definitions and examples but also by means of showing their collocability (lexical and grammatical valency1), especially their typical collocability.

§ 11. Choke of Adequate Equivalents.

One of the major problems in compiling translation dictionaries and other bi-lingual word-books is to provide adequate translation of vocabulary items or rather to choose an adequate equivalent in the target language.

According to Acad. L. V. Scerba, translation dictionaries that do not give due attention to delimitation of word-meaning cannot ensure real mastery of foreign words. The compilation of such dictionaries must be based on systematic and detailed contrastive studies of the languages dealt with. Only this will enable the lexicographer to decide what parts of their vocabularies diverge and thus require special attention in translation.

Speaking of scientific methods in compiling translation dictionaries we pay a tribute to Prof. A. I. Smirnitsky and Prof. I. R. Galperin who following the principles of the Russian school of lexicographers (D. N. Usha-kov, L. V. Scerba, V. V. Vinogradov) made a valuable contribution to Soviet lexicography, particularly bilingual lexicography, and made useful innovations. The Russian-English Dictionary under Prof. Smir-nitsky's general direction and the New English-Russian Dictionary edited by Prof. I. R. Galperin differ from other word-books of their kind on account of wider and more profound information that is supplied both about the vocabulary items entered and their translations; more attention than usual is given to the way words are combined in speech, to their emotional and stylistic overtones, etc.

Conveying the meaning of a lexical unit in the target language is no easy task as the semantic structures of related words in different languages are never identical,2 which is observable in any pair of languages. The lack of isomorphism is not limited to the so-called "culture-bound words" only but also to most other lexical units.

The dictionary-maker is to give the most exact equivalent in the target language. Where there is no equivalent, to achieve maximum accuracy in rendering the meanings to be entered the compiler may either describe the meaning with an explanation, much similar to the definition of an explanatory dictionary but worded in the other language, or resort to transliteration. Very often enumeration of equivalents alone does not supply a complete picture of the semantic volume of this or that word, so a combination of different means of semantization is necessary.

§ 12. Setting of the Entry

Since different types of dictionaries differ in their aim, in the information they provide, in their size, etc., they of necessity differ in the structure and content of the entry.

The most complicated type of entry is that found in explanatory dictionaries.

In explanatory dictionaries of the synchronic type the entry usually presents the following data: accepted spelling and pronunciation; grammatical characteristics including the indication of the part of speech of each entry word, the transitivity and intransitivity of verbs and irregular grammatical forms; definitions of meanings; modern currency; illustrative examples; derivatives; phraseology; etymology; sometimes also synonyms and antonyms.

By way of illustration we give the entry for the word arrive from COD.arrive, v.i. Come to destination (lit. & fig.) or end of journey (at Bath, in Paris, upon scene, at conclusion); (as Gallicism) estab-lish one's repute or position; (of things) be brought; (of time) come; (of events) come about. (f. OF ariver f. L. L. arribare L L. ADripare come to shore (ripa)).

The compilers of a dictionary of the same type may choose a different setting of a typical entry: they may omit some of the items or add some others, choose a different order of their arrangement or a different mode of presenting the same information.

Compare, e.g., the entry for the same word arrive from Webster's Collegiate Dictionary.

ar-rive /a-riv'/, v.i. [O. F. ariver, deriv. of L. ad to + ripa shore, bank]. 1. Obs. To come to the shore. 2. To reach a place; as, to arrive at home. 3. To gain an object; attain a state by effort, study. etc.; as, to arrive at a conclusion. 4. To come; —said of time. 5. To attain success or recognition.

Syn. Arrive, come. Arrive implies more definitely than come the attainment of a destination.

— v.t. Archaic. To reach; come to.

As we see in COD the pronunciation of the word is given without respelling, only with the help of the stress mark (which it is important for practical purposes to know is placed at the end of the stressed syllable); in WCD the word is transcribed in full in special phonetic notation; besides in this word-book syllabification is indicated both in the graphic-and sound-forms of the word. Etymology is placed at the end of the entry in COD and at the beginning in WCD.

The two entries also differ in other respects. E.g., WCD provides synonymy, obsolete and archaic meanings, whereas COD gives more attention to the use of prepositions; the number of illustrative phrases is greater in COD than in WCD; in COD the meanings are separated with semi-colons, while in WCD they are all numbered.

A typical entry in diachronic explanatory dictionaries will have some specific features. Apart from the chronological arrangement of and illustrative quotations to present the historical sense the etymology of the word is accorded an exhaustive treatment, besides a distinguishing feature of such reference books is the dates accompanying each word, word-meaning and quotation that indicate the time of its first registration or, if the word or one of its meanings is obsolete, the time of its last registration.

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See, for example, the presentation of two meanings of the verb arrive in SOD (the sign + =obsolete, the dash —before the date indicates the time of the last publication):

arrive...+3. To bring, convey— 1667. 4. intr. To come to the end of a journey, to some definite place, upon the scene. Const, at, in, upon, + into, + to. ME. transf. Of things 1651.

It should be noted in passing that the dates that are often interpreted as the time of the word's (or one of its meaning's) appearance or disappearance in the language are in fact their earliest known occurrences, since the still earlier records might not have been examined by the staff collecting the material for the dictionary and the word might be current in oral speech a long time before it came to occur in print.

In other types of dictionaries the content and structure of the entry will be altogether different. Compare, for instance, the four entries for arrive taken from a translation and a frequency dictionaries, from an etymological and pronouncing word-books:

The Dictionary edited by I. R. Galperin:

arrive [a'raiv] v 1. (at, in, upon) прибывать,приезжать; to in London прибывать в Лондон; the police ~d upon the scene на место происшествия прибыла полиция; to ~ punctually [tardily, in good time] прибыть точно [с опозданием, вовремя]; sold "to ~" kom. к прибытию) (условие сделки при продаже товара, в пути); 2. (at) 1) достигать (чего-л.), приходить (к to ~ at understanding достигнуть взаимопонимания; to ~ at a decision принять решение; to ~ at a conclusion прийти к заключению...

The General Service List by M. West:

arrive, v 532 (1) Arrive home, in London

Arrive at an age when... 74%

(2) The parcel has arrived

The time has arrived when... 11%

(3) Arrive at a conclusion... 12%

(The count is to be read as follows: In a, count of 5 million running words the word arrive occurred 532 times. In 74% of these occurrences it had the first meaning, in 11%—the second, etc.).

Oxford Etymological Dictionary:

arrive [araiv] + bring or come to shore, land XIII; come to the end of a journey, a goal, etc. XIV; + reach (a port, etc.) XVI; + come to pass XVII.—OF. ariver (mod. arriver arrive, happen) = Pr. aribar, Sp. arribar.—Rom. *arripare come to land, f. ad AR+ripo shore (cf. RIVER). Formerly sometimes inflected+aroue, +ariven; cf. STRIVE.

Jones' Dictionary:

arriv/e, -s, -ing, -ed; -al/s s'raiv, -z, in, -d, -al/z

arrogan/ce, -cy, -t/ly 'aragen/s t-roug-, -rug-], -si, -t/li

ascertain, -s, -Ing, -ed, -ment;-able aesa'tein t-sa-.'t-I, -z, -in, -d, -nrent; -abl

Sometimes the entries for the same word will look quite different in dictionaries of the same type. Thus the setting of the entry varies in different books of synonyms depending upon the practical needs of the intended users. Some word-books enumerate synonyms to each meaning of the head-word to help the user recall words close in meaning that may have been forgotten. Other word-books provide discriminating synonymies, i.e. they explain the difference in semantic structure, use and style, and show how each synonym is related to, yet differs from all the others in the same group.

Compare:

Admission, n. 1. Admittance, introduction, access, entrance, initiation, entree. 2. Allowance, avowal, concession, acknowledgement, assent, acceptance.

(Soule R. A Dictionary of English Synonyms and Synonymous Expressions.)

ADMISSION, ADMITTANCE

ADMISSION, for being allowed to enter (usually a place),

is the commonly used word, and it has today almost entirely displaced ADMITTANCE, which is now restricted to a few idiomatic uses, e.g. "No admittance except on business".

(Collins V. H. The Choice of Words. A Book of Synonyms with Ex-planations)

§ 13. Structure of the Dictionary

When the selection of the dictionary entries, the contents and structure of the entries, their order of arrangement etc. are decided upon, the lexicographer is to settle upon this or that structure of the dictionary.

In spite of the great variety of linguistic dictionaries their composition has many features in common. Nearly all of them may be roughly divided into three unequal parts.

Apart from the dictionary proper, that make up the bulk of the wordbook, every reference book contains some separate sections which are to help the user in handling it—an Introduction and Guide to the use of the dictionary. This prefatory matter usually explains all the peculiarities of the word-book, it also contains a key to pronunciation, the list of abbreviations used and the like.

It is very important that the user of a dictionary should read this prefatory matter for this will enable him to know what is to be found the word-book and what is not, will help him locate words quickly easily, and derive the full amount of information the dictionary affords.

Appended to the dictionary proper there is some supplementary material valuable for language learners and language teachers. This material may be divided into one of linguistic nature, pertaining to vocabulary, its development and use, and the other pertaining to matters distinctly encyclopaedic. In explanatory dictionaries the appendixes

of the first kind usually include addenda or/and various word-lists: geographical names, foreign words and expressions, forenames, etc., record new meanings of words already entered and words that have come into existence since the compilation of the word-book. The educational material may include a list of colleges and universities, special signs and symbols used in various branches of science, tables of weights and measures, etc.

In translation dictionaries supplementary material is in some respects different from that in explanatory dictionaries, e.g. the Russian-English dictionary referred to above does not only include a list of geographical names, standard abbreviations pertaining to the public, political, economic and industrial life, but also contains the rules of English and Russian pronunciation as well as brief outlines of English and Russian grammar.

LEARNER'S DICTIONARIES AND SOME PROBLEMS

OF THEIR COMPILATION

§ 14. Main Characteristic Features

Nowadays practical and theoretical learner's lexicography is given great attention to, especially in our country. Lexicographers, linguists and methods specialists discuss such problems as the classification of learner's dictionaries, the scope of the word-list for learners at different stages of advancement, the principles of word selection, etc.

In the broad sense of the word the term 1earner's dictionaries might be applied to any word-book designed as an aid to various users, both native and foreign, studying a language from various angles. Thus, we might refer to this group of word-books such reference books as Student's Dictionary of Anglo-Saxon by H. Sweet, the numerous school-level or college-level dictionaries for native speakers, the numerous spelling-books, etc. By tradition the term is confined to dictionaries specially compiled to meet the demands of the learners for whom English is not their mother tongue. It is in this sense that we shall use the term further on.

These dictionaries differ essentially from ordinary academic dictionaries, on the one hand, and from word-books compiled specially for English and American schoolchildren and college students, on the other hand.

Though foreign language learners and children speaking the same language as their mother tongue have both imperfect command of English, it is obvious that the needs and problems of the two groups of dictionary users are altogether different. A foreign adult student of Eng

lish even at a moderately advanced stage of learning will have pitfalls and needs of his own: among the other things he may have difficulties Kith the use of the most "simple" words (such as play, wipe), he may not know the names for commonest things in everyday life (such as oatmeal, towel, rug) and he will experience in this or that degree interference of his mother tongue.

On the one hand, we have users who for the most part have command of the language, who have fluent speech habits, since this language is their mother tongue; they need guidance as to which of the usage they come across is correct. On the other hand, we have users that have a limited vocabulary and no speech habits or very weak ones and who have stable speech habits in another language which is their native tongue and these native speech habits interfere with the foreign ones. That is why these users must be given thorough instruction in how the words to be used and this instruction must be given against the background of the learners' native language.

That is why the word-lists and the sort of directions for use for the benefit of the foreign adult learners of English must differ very widely if not fundamentally) from those given to English or American school-children.

Hence the word-books of this group are characterized by the following features:

1) by their strictly limited word-list, the selection of which is based on carefully thought over scientific principles;

2) the great attention given to the functioning of lexical units in |speech;

3) a strong prescriptive, normative character; 4) by their compilation with the native linguistic background in view.

§ 15. Classification of Learners Dictionaries.

Learner's dictionaries may be classified in accordance with different principles, the main of which are: 1) the scope of the word-list and 2) the nature of the information afforded.

From the point of view of the scope (volume) of the word-list they into two groups. Those of the first group contain all lexical units that the prospective user may need, in the second group only the most essential and important words are selected. To the first group we can refer A. S. Hornby's Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary (50,000 lexical units) and M. West's International Reader's Dictionary (about 24000 units); to the second group—A Grammar of English Words by H. Palmer (1,000 words), and The English-Russian Learner's Dictionary by S. K. Folomkina and H. M. Weiser (3,500 units). As to the information afforded by learner's dictionaries lexicographers and methodologists seem to have agreed that there should be a whole series of them. There must be a group of dictionaries presenting different aspects of the vocabulary: showing mainly the semantic structure of words (explanatory), presenting the syntagmatic relations between words (dictionaries of collocations), providing information about the word's structure (derivational), supplying synonymous and antonymous words, etc.

Another grouping of dictionaries reflects the practice of teaching different aspects of speech. The word-books having as their goal the ability to read scientific and technical literature in a foreign language will need a vast word-list ensuring adequate comprehension of written speech. Teaching oral speech habits requires a dictionary that contains a selected list of active words explained from the point of view of their use.

Since learners of different linguistic background will have different pitfalls in mastering the same language, will need different directions for use, different restrictive remarks, each pair of languages requires its own dictionaries, dictionaries based on a contrastive study of the learner's native tongue and the language to be learned.1

In this connection it must be said that Hornby's dictionary, with all its merits and advantages, has an essential demerit—it does not take into account the user's linguistic background, so it cannot foresee and prevent the possible language problems of this or that national group of English learners.

Not long ago Soviet lexicographers came to the opinion that separate reference books are called for teachers and learners. As far as dictionaries of English go, perhaps the first attempts at producing dictionaries for teachers are the reference books Adjectival Collocations and Verbal Collocations.

Those are the main types of dictionaries considered necessary to ensure the process of foreign language teaching. As to the present state of learner's lexicography, it may be characterized as just coming into being, as the already existing dictionaries are few in number and they do not make a system, rather some separate links of a system.

As to the information they provide they may be divided into two groups: those giving equal attention to the word's semantic characteristics and the way it is used in speech (these may be called learner's dictionaries proper) and those concentrating on detailed treatment of the word's lexical and grammatical valency (dictionaries of collocations).

To learner's dictionaries proper issued in English-speaking countries we may refer, for example, The Progressive English Dictionary and An English Reader's Dictionary by A. S. Hornby and E. C. Parnwell designed for beginners, as well as Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English by A. S. Hornby and The New Horizon Ladder Dictionary of the English Language by J. R. Shaw with J. Shaw for more advanced students.

Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary of Current English by A. Hornby has achieved international recognition as a most valuable practical reference book to English as a foreign language. It contains 50,000 units and is compiled on the basis of COD to meet the needs of advanced foreign learners of English and language teachers. It aims among other things at giving detailed information about the grammatical and partly lexical valency of words.

The New Horizon Ladder Dictionary includes 5000 of the most frequently used words in written English. It is called Ladder Dictionary be-cause the words are divided in it into five levels or ladder rungs of ap-proximately 1000 each, according to the frequency of their use (a figure in brackets attached to each word shows to which thousand the word belongs).

Compiled in our country is the English-Russian Dictionary of Most Commonly Used Words prepared by V. D. Arakin, H. M. Weiser and S.K. Folomkina, under Prof. I. V. Rakhmanov's direction. This is a vocabulary minimum of 3250 words, typical word-groups and phraseological units selected for active mastery in Soviet secondary school.

The Learner's English-Russian Dictionary by S. Folomkina and H. Weiser does not, strictly speaking, belong to the group of dictionaries under "consideration, as it is designed for use by English-speaking students of the Russian language, but is helpful as well when learning English. It contains about 3500 words.

| The word-books given above differ in many respects: they are either.monolingual or polylingual, they provide different information, they differ in the kind of the intended user (learners of the English language who have reached different stages in the course of their studies, adults or children of different linguistic background—English-speaking learners of Russian) and in aim (an aid to oral speech—the development of reading and writing skills) and in other features. However these dictionaries have some traits in common that distinguish them from the word-books considered in the preceding sections. They all aim, at teaching how to speak, write, etc., while the tendency in modern English lexicography is not to prescribe as to usage, but to record what is actually Used by speakers.

Dictionaries of collocation contain words which freely combine with the given head-word. The few reference books of this kind known to us belong to the pen of foreign compilers. For example, A. Reum's Dictionary of English Style is designed for the Germans, Kenkyusha's New Dictionary of English Collocations is intended for the Japanese, Adjectival Collocations in Modern English by T. S. Gorelik and Verbal Collocations in Modern English by R. Ginzburg, S. Khidekel, E. Mednikova and A. Sankin are designed for Russian school teachers and students of English.

Each of the two dictionaries of collocations prepared by Soviet linguists presents the collocability of 375 words that are used in Sovietschool text-books. The presentation of the word's grammatical and lexical valency is based on identical principles.

§ 16.Selection of Entry Words.

Compilers of learner's dictionaries have to tackle the same cardinal problems as those of ordinary explanatory and translation dictionaries, but they often solve them in their own way, besides they have some specific policies to settle on to meet the needs of language learners to whom the book will be addressed. The common purpose of learner's dictionaries is to give information on what is currently accepted usage, besides most compilers seek to choose

the lexical units that foreign learners of English are likely to need. Therefore not only are obsolete, archaic and dialectal words excluded, but also technical and scientific terms, substandard words and phrases, etc. Colloquial and slang words as well as foreign words of common occurrence in English are included only if they are of the sort likely to be met by students either in reading or in conversation. Moreover some of the common words may be omitted if they are not often encountered in books, newspapers, etc. or heard over the radio and in conversation.

Space is further saved by omitting certain derivatives and compounds the meaning of which can be easily inferred.

Alternative spellings and pronunciations are avoided, only the more accepted forms are listed.

Various criteria have been employed in choosing words for learner's dictionaries. In the first place the selection of words is based on the frequency principle.

Frequency value, an important characteristic of lexical units, is closely connected with their other properties. That is why the word-counts enable the compiler to choose the most important, the most frequently used words.

However many methodologists and compilers of learner's dictionaries have a tendency to exaggerate the significance of the frequency criterion. The research done in different countries (in our country and in France, for example) has shown that the frequency tables, helpful as they are in the compilation of a vocabulary minimum, do not in themselves present the vocabulary minimum. While it is indisputable that every high-frequency word is useful, it is not every useful word that is frequent (e.g. carrots, fork, stamp, etc.). Consequently frequency cannot be the only point to be considered in selecting items for learner's dictionaries as well as for other teaching materials. It must be complemented by some other principles, such as the Words' collocability, sty-listic reference, derivational ability, semantic structure, etc.1

§ 17. Presentations of Meanings.

The order of arrangement of meanings followed in learner's dictionaries is usually empiric, that is beginning with the main meaning to minor ones. Besides the following principles of arrangement are considered proper for language learners: literal uses before figurative, general uses before special, common uses before rare and easily understandable uses before difficult. Each of these principles is subject to the limitation "other things being equal" and all are subject to the principle that that arrangement is best for any word which helps the learners most.

E.g. in Hornby's entry for commit the first meaning is 'perform' (a crime, foolish act, etc.) and its primary meaning 'entrust' is given as its second meaning.

But this is not always the case. For instance, the first meaning of the word revolution given by Hornby is 'act of revolving or journeying round' and not 'complete change, great reversal of conditions, esp. in methods of government', which is more common nowadays. Thus the compilers preserve the historical order of meanings in this case.

In monolingual learner's dictionaries the same types of definitions are used, as in ordinary monolingual explanatory word-books, but their proportion is different. Encyclopaedic definitions are usually used more rarely, the role of descriptive definitions is much greater.

Compare, for instance, the definition for coal taken from the Ladder Dictionary with that from COD given above.1

coal n. a black, hard substance that burns and gives off heat.

It would be wrong to think however that the definitions in learner's dictionaries are always less complete than in the dictionaries designed for native users. More often than not these definitions are not so condensed in form and they are more complete in content, because the compilers have to make up for the user's possible inadequacy in command of the language and lack of knowledge of some realia.

Compare, for example the two entries for prep given below:

COD //2 (abbr prep) preparation of lessons as part of school routine;

OALD [U]3 (colloq abbr prep) (time given to) preparing lessons or writing exercises, after normal school hours (esp at GB public or grammar schools): two hours' prep; do one's French

In learner's dictionaries cross-references are for the most part reduced to a minimum.

Compilers of learner's dictionaries attach great importance to the language in which the definition is couched, the goal being to word them in the simplest terms that are consistent with accuracy. Some compilers see to it that the definitions are couched in language which is commoner and more familiar to the language learner than the words defined.

Some lexicographers select a special defining vocabulary held to be the commonest words in English or those first learnt by foreigners. For example, in the International Reader's Dictionary the word-list of 4,000 items is defined within a vocabulary of 1490 words selected by West.

In some learner's dictionaries pictorial material is widely used as a means of semantization of the words listed. Pictures cannot only define meanings of such nouns as dike, portico, domes, columns, brushes,., but sometimes also of adjectives, verbs and adverbs.

E.g. in Hornby's dictionary the definitions of the adjective concentrated, the verb clasp and the adverb abreast are illustrated with the pictures of concentrated circles, clasped hands, and boys walking three abreast.

§ 18. Setting of the Entry

The structure and content of the entry in learner's dictionaries also have some peculiar features. Chief among these is marked attention to the ways words are used in speech, e.g. Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary points out which nouns, and in which of their meanings, can be used with the indefinite articles (the symbols [C] and [U] stand for "countable" and "uncountable"). It also indicates the patterns in which verbs can be used. They are presented with the help of the abbreviation VP and the number of the pattern preceding the definition of each meaning. All the patterns are listed in A Summary of the Verb Patterns. The dictionary also gives information of a more detailed character about the lexical valency of words. Sets of words with which the head-word may combine as well as illustrative examples taken from everyday language are given, e.g.

ar-rive /a'raiv/ vi [VP2A, C, 3A] 1 reach a place, esp the end of a journey: ~ home, ~ at a port, ~ in harbour, 2. come: At last the day ~ d. Her baby ~d (= was born) yesterday. 3. [VP3A] ~ at, reach (a decision, a price, the age of 40, manhood, etc) 4 [VP2AJ establish one's position or reputation: The flood of fan mail proved he'd ~d.

Each dictionary has its own specific features. For instance, in the Learner's English-Russian Dictionary there is no indication of the patterns the English word is used in. Designed for English learners of Russian the dictionary provides Russian equivalents for all meanings with the stress indicated in each word and translation of all examples, indicates the types of conjugation of Russian verbs. See the entry from the dictionary given below:

arrive [a'raiv] приезжать (64), perf приехать (71); the delegation will ~ on Wednesday делегация приедет в среду; what time do we ~? в котором часу мы приедем?... when I ~d home they were already there когда я приехал(a) домой, они уже были там.

In dictionaries of collocations the setting of the entry assumes a different shape. See, for example, the entry for arrive taken from the Verbal Collocations:

arrive [a'raiv] I2 [come to a place]; ~ at some time (unexpectedly, early, late, safely, next week, at last, etc.) приезжать, прибывать в какое-л. время; the train (the steamer, the plane, etc.) has ~ d поезд (пароход и т. д.) прибыл, прищел; your friend (his son etc.) has ~d твой друг (ero сын и т. д.) приехал/ a parcel has ~d посылка пришла;

II 1. [see I]; ~ with /by/ smth (with a train, with a steamer, by the six o'clock train, by aeroplane, etc.) прибывать чем-л.; ~ on smth (on horseback, on one's bicycle, etc.) приезжать на чем-л.', ~ at some time (on time, just at the right moment, on Monday, on March 3rd, at six o'clock, before /after/ dark, before /after/ smb, etc.) прибывать когда-л.; ~ somewhere (at a small station, at a village in England, in a city, in London, in harbour, etc.) прибывать куда-л.; 2. [reach, attain]; ~ at smth (at a goal, at perfection, etc.) достигать чего-л.; ~ at smth (at a conclusion, at a correct result, at an opinion, at an understanding, etc.) при-ходить к чему-л.; ~ at a decision принимать решение.

The supplementary matter in learner's dictionaries, besides that usually found in general dictionaries, may include other reference material necessary for language learners. For instance, Oxford Advanced Learner's Dictionary includes not only lists of irregular verbs, common abbreviations, geographical names, etc., but also common forenames listed with their pet names, numerical expressions giving help in the 'reading, speaking and writing of numbers and expressions which contain them, the works of William Shakespeare and even ranks in the Armed Forces of GB and US.

§ 19. Summary and Conclusions

1. The numerous linguistic dictionaries of the English language may be grouped by the following criteria:1) the nature of their word-list, 2) the information they contain, 3) the language of the explanations, 4) the intended user.

The most important problems the lexicographer faces are: 1) the selection of items for inclusion and their arrangement, 2) the setting of the entries, 3) the selection, arrangement and definition of meanings, 4) the illustrative examples to be supplied, and 5) the supplementary material. The choice among the possible solutions depends upon the type to which the dictionary will belong, the aim the compilers pursue, the prospective user of the dictionary, the linguistic conceptions of the dictionary-maker, etc.

Designed for foreign learners of English, learner's dictionariesare characterized by their strictly limited word-list, the great attention given to the functioning of lexical units in speech and theirstrong perspective orientation.

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