KEY ELEMENTS OF A DICTIONARY

(course notes)

Dictionaries can be defined through the elements they contain. A look at any type will
reveal a rather general, acknowledged structure, including the entry, alphabetization,
lexical and linguistic information (phonology/pronunciation, spelling, morphology,
syntax, semantics, context/register, etymology, usage), illustrations, front and back
matter. The absence of one or more of these elements is a matter of choice among the
authors.

1. The Entry. Entry Counting

2. Alphabetization
3. Lexical and Linguistic Information.
3.1. Phonology/ Pronunciation
3.2. Spelling
3.3. Morphology
3.4. Syntax
3.5. Semantics
4. Context/Register
5. Etymology
6. Usage
7. Dictionary Illustration
8. Front and Back Matter.

1. The Entry. Entry Counting

The entry represents the alphabetized headword by which the word or expression
being defined is identified. Most headwords are canonical forms making up a paradigm
and being representative of a certain natural language in its standard. The standard here
refers primarily to spelling and pronunciation. Not all words count as entries.
In what follows I shall briefly comment both upon the nature and number of the
entries as contained in the dictionaries in general and in certain dictionaries in particular
by having a look at what might be called ways of counting the contents of a dictionary.
Here I mention the following criteria:

1.1. Multiple (vs) single entries

When a word belongs to more than one word-class there are two possibilities: to
use as many entries as the word-classes the word belongs to or to use only one entry for
all the word-classes the word belongs to. For example, heavy may be used as an
adjective, adverb or noun: the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (1995) and
the Oxford Advanced Learner’s Dictionary (1997) contain three headwords heavy in the
specified order:
heavy1 / hevi/ adj. heavier , heaviest
1. <WEIGHT > weighing a lot: I can’t lift this case- it’s too heavy. / The baby seemed to
be getting heavier and heavier in her arms ‫ ׀‬how heavy? (= how much does it weigh)
How heavy is the parcel? – opposite LIGHT3 (4)
heavy2 adv time hangs/lies heavy on your hands if time hangs or lies heavy on your
hands, it seems to pass slowly because you are bored or have nothing to do.
heavy3 n [C] 1 informal [ usually plural] a large strong man who is paid to protect
someone or to threaten other people 2 a serious male character in a play or film,
especially by a bad character; VILLAIN (1) 3 the heavies BrE large, serious newspapers.
(Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 1995: 664)

The Chambers Twentieth Century Dictionary (1997) includes the adjective, the adverb
and the noun under a single entry.
heavy , hev’i adj. weighty: ponderous; laden: abounding….
- adv. heavily
- n. the villain on stage or screen

1.2. The number of “definitions “or meanings

When a word has several/various meanings or senses they are separated under the same
entry either by numbers, in the case of different meanings or by letters, in the case of
closely-related meanings, both methods being in the practice of most dictionaries
nowadays.
dip2 / dip/ n 1 [C] an act of dipping. 2[C] (infml) a quick BATHE(3) in the sea:
have/take/go for a dip. 3 [U] a liquid for dipping sheep in to protect them from infection
or insects. 4 [C,U] a thick mixture into which biscuits or pieces of raw vegetables are
dipped before being eaten, eg at parties: a/some cheese dip. 5 [C] a downward slope: a
dip in the road o a dip among the hills. See also LUCKY DIP (OXFORD: 325)
ridge1 / ri dЗ/ n1 [C] a long area of high land, especially at the top of a mountain: a
windswept ridge – see picture on page 835. 2 a) a line of something that rises above a
surface: a ridge of boulders/ a sandy ridge b) a long narrow raised part of a surface: The
ridges on the soles give the shoes a better grip 3 a ridge of high pressure technical a
long area of high ATMOSPHERIC pressure. ( LONGMAN: 1220).

1.3. References

The method of counting by references has been designed by Landau as a system used to
maximize the number of entries in American dictionaries. The following items are
considered references by Landau (1989: 84-85):
1. The main entry, or headword
2. Any additional word class a word belongs to/ part of speech of the headword, i.e. as a
verb/noun/adjective. Some dictionaries allot separate headword status to each part of
speech, others do not .
3. Any inflected forms given such as optional presence of identical past tense and past
participle forms in -ed and -ing forms.
4. Run- on derivatives without definitions
5. Run - in idioms or other fixed expressions included within an entry
6. Variant spellings.
7. Words given in lists and derived by prefixation with common prefixes, such as in,-
non,- re,-un.
8. Anything in a bold typeface is counted as reference
These references may overlap with the following “ headwords” contained in modern
dictionaries: a. abbreviations; b. prefixes; combining forms; e. open compounds; f.
encyclopedic entries, neither in the specified order or with the obligatory presence of all
of them.
The main entry form in a dictionary serves a number of different purposes according to
Landau (1989: 87); it indicates the referred spelling, the usual printed form of the lexical
unit and syllabication.
When speaking about dictionaries, the usual questions of how many words they contain
will surely arise but the answer depends, not surprisingly, upon the author ‘s choice to
save space: “Every decision a biographer makes affects the proportion of space his
dictionary will allot to each component. It is perfectly fair for critics to question his
judgment, but they must realize that the length of a dictionary is finite, and as large as it
may appear to them, it is never large enough for the lexicographer”(Landau:87).

2. Alphabetization

Alphabetization in dictionaries concerns primarily the headwords, thus enabling

the user to quickly find the word that he is looking up. There are two ways of
alphabetizing: letter by letter and word by word.
Letter by letter arrangement is by far the most general method, having the great
advantage that users need not bother about knowing whether a compound is spelled as
one word, a hyphenated one, or as two words, e.g. power, powerful, power of attorney.
Word by word arrangement seems rather complicated for the average user but it
might be of great use for specialists, e.g. power of attorney comes before powerful. It is
important to notice that few dictionaries operate with a strict alphabetical order of the
lexical items. This is because all dictionaries use some degree of nesting where a lexical
item may be included within the entry of another lexical item which has headword status.
This nesting policy or running-on refers to the arrangement of the following
categories of words: words derived by suffixation and prefixation ; fixed phrases; idioms;
compound words.
In general, some dictionaries accord headword status only to those derivatives
whose meaning has diverged significantly from the root, others ordinarily give headword
status to any derivative that merits separate definition.
In the case of suffixation, run-ons do not need separate definitions, since the user
is assumed to be capable of deducing the meaning from the headword and the suffix, e.g.
cello – cellist.
A more strict selection is operated in the case of words derived by prefixation
which are always allotted separate headword status, because a user would not otherwise
be able to find them in the alphabetical listing, e.g. believable/unbelievable. Fixed
phrases and idioms are nested under the headword of the first main word in the phrase
(even if this is not always very clear) so, by and large, no form of alphabetization can be
fully successful since there is not always clear whether the idiom should be placed under
the first word or under the most important word and eventually decide upon which word
is more important. As a conclusion, most dictionaries prefer to list idioms under the first
word, but there are also exceptions, e.g. that one could cut with a knife could be entered
either under knife or under cut headwords.
In the case of compound words nesting depends primarily upon spelling, since
such category of words can be spelt either as solid, e.g. landmark, hyphenated, e.g. land-
law or open, e.g. land mass.
Some dictionaries (usually those which nest all suffixed derivatives) nest all
compounds. At the other extreme, there is the practice of according headword status to all
compounds, without nesting:” Intermediate between these two extremes is the policy that
accords headword status to solid compounds but nests hyphenated and open compounds
or that nests only open compounds, treating them like phrases, while giving headword
status to solid and hyphenated compounds. “(: 165).

3. Lexical and Linguistic Information

3.2. Spelling
Since dictionaries are printed, alphabetically ordered reference works, spelling is
a given. Deciding upon spelling is of a paramount importance for the dictionary maker:
“The first task of the editor of a dictionary is to decide on the spelling of his word-entry.
Usually on a modern dictionary this affords no difficulty as usage has fixed a single
spelling (Hulbert, J. R.)”.
In English, the standard (which here refers primarily to spelling and
pronunciation) which emerged during the fifteenth century, was that of the East Midland
district that included London, but it was not until Bailey’s dictionaries of the 1730’s and
more particularly Johnson’s Dictionary of 1755 that the spellings of many words became
fixed.
There are two particular kinds of information about spelling that dictionaries
usually provide. The first concerns the spelling changes in the root of a word when
adding a suffix. As illustrations we can quote both irregular and regular inflections for
nouns, adjectives, verbs, e.g. country-countries, bad-worse, reply-replied, sin-sinning.
The second refers to alternative spellings: British and American English e.g.
travelling-traveling, centre-center, colour-color; alternatives in British English only:
systematic, e.g. the – ‘er’/ - or’ alternation in adviser or – ie’/ - y’ alternation in words
like auntie/y; idiosyncratic, e.g. baloney/boloney, both/bodge. The desire for uniformity
is so great that popular variants are not welcomed: “ The graphic dress of the language is
now so sacrosanct that dictionaries are used as authoritarian, “style manuals” in matters
of spelling, hyphenation and syllabification”(Zgusta).