Macrostructural and microstructural strategies to enhance reference quality of Thanodi ya Setswana

[摘要] ENGLISH ABSTRACT:Ineffective treatment procedures of lexical items and inadequate information in themacrostructure and microstructure reduce the value of the reference quality of Thanodi ofSetswana. This prompted an attempt at suggesting improvements with regard to the treatmentand information retrieval of lexical items.This dictionary is not consistent in its use of structural marketslreference symbols to mark vitallexicographic information and reference addresses. Homonyms are not given the comprehensivelexicographic treatment, that would enable the user to access all relevant linguistic and semanticinformation, Another shortcoming is the lack of the use of labels on some headwords in thisdictionary.The treatment procedure given to synonyms in this dictionary fails to provide the relevantinformation that the user needs. There is a lack of semantic linking among synonyms, becauseof the inadequate use of cross-reference symbols and reference markers. Loan-words are notmarked to indicate their linguistic origin and to recognise them as being part of the Setswanalexicon and conveying lexicographic information. The unavailability of usage notes as part ofthe treatment of Thanodi ya Setswana, reduces the reference quality of the dictionary as a sourceof linguistic information. The use of this semantic information as part of the definiens isimportant to avoid unclear lemma definitions.The treatment procedure given to certain lemmas in this dictionary, suggests that the spacesaving principle is ignored. There are repeated definitions in the articles of synonymous lemmasand this creates redundancy. It is suggested that synonymous lemmas be treated by a crossreferencedepending on their usage frequency. The more frequently used lemmas should be givenfull lexicographic treatment and the less frequently used lemmas be given a partial treatment.The treatment of nouns in this dictionary also reduces its reference quality. Singular nouns arelemmatized but plural nouns are not lemmatized, The exclusion of these plural nouns in themacrostructure of this dictionary disadvantages an inexperienced user, especially in cases wherethese plural forms are more frequently used than the singular forms. A strategy to lemmatizeboth singular and plural nouns can maximise the usefulness of the dictionary.There are sublexical lexical items that are part of the Setswana lexicon but are not lemmatizedin this dictionary. These sublexicallexical items should be lemmatized to recognise their statusas lexical items. The treatment procedure given to inflectional and deficient verbs is a cause forconcern in this dictionary. Instead of semantic information being provided, a derivation processis shown in the dictionary's article. This poor treatment given to these lexical items, leads to other senses of the lemma being left out and not being found by the dictionary user.The suggested strategies in the treatment of lexical items and the making available oflexicographic information, would make this dictionary more user-friendly. With suchimprovements, this dictionary would benefit the dictionary user.

[发布机构] Stellenbosch University