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Domain Templates. Seeing patterns in related words. Working within semantic domains. It is far more insightful to investigate all the words that belong to a semantic domain at one time.
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Domain Templates Seeing patterns in related words.
Working within semantic domains. • It is far more insightful to investigate all the words that belong to a semantic domain at one time. • This is true not just when investigating the semantics and writing definitions, but also when investigating patterns of polysemy and usage.
Animals. • The primary sense of the word ‘cow’ refers to a type of mammal. • But ‘cow’ is also used in idioms, such as ‘have a cow’. • ‘Cow’ is also used to describe people, in this case with a pejorative meaning, “She’s a cow.” • Cows make noise: ‘moo’. • Cows are eaten. But we don’t eat ‘cow’, we eat ‘beef’.
Procedure for developing a template. • Collect as many members of the lexical set as possible. • Pick a very common or important member of the domain. • Think of all the words related to the head word by various lexical relations. • Pick a second member of the domain and repeat the process, comparing with the first word to see which features of the meaning and usage are common. • After doing this for three or four words, you should have a fairly good idea of what to look for when investigating other members of the domain.
Procedure for developing a template (continued). • Write up all the issues, procedures, and questions you need to ask for each word. • Set up a template in the form of a chart as in the example above. • Consider setting up a large chart with the questions along the vertical axis and the words along the horizontal axis. This will help you see patterns. • File the template for future reference in case you find a new word that belongs to the domain.
Things to include in a template. • Basic data. • example sentences. • concordance entries from the text corpus. • Citation form and pronunciation. • Variant forms. • Affixation potential • Criterial features. • Lexical relations.
Things to include in a template (continued) • Collocations. • for verbs—typical actants. • for nouns • adjectives. • verbs in which the noun is subject. • verbs in which the noun is object. • for adjectives—nouns which the adjective modifies. • for adverbs—verbs which the adverb modifies.
Things to include in a template (continued) • Pragmatic issues. • usage restrictions. • connotation. • Cultural setting. • Definition framework. • Secondary meanings. • Metaphors. • Examples of metonymy. • Complex forms that incorporate the lexeme. • Compounds, idioms, expressions Be creative. Words vary from each other in many ways. No two templates will be the same.
The value of using templates. • Information can be gathered faster. • Ensures that basic facts about a words are not missed. • Makes the approach to the lexical set more systematic. • Ensures that the definitions for each member of the set are consistent. • Writing template entries is a good way to train new lexicographers.
Assignment. • Develop a domain template for ‘Parts of the body’, using the words ‘head’ ‘eye’ ‘ear’ ‘nose’ ‘mouth’ and ‘tongue’. • Develop a domain template for ‘Color’, using the words ‘black’ ‘white’ ‘red’ ‘yellow’ and ‘blue’. • Spend about an hour on each domain. • The purpose is to learn what kinds of things to include in a template and to see the value of them.
Bibliography Atkins, Sue. 1997. SALEX handouts. unpublished manuscript.