Keywords
affixal constructions
census
polymorphy
lexicographical glosses
How to Cite
Abstract
Historically, lexicography has given a relatively secondary place to infralexical signs, and among those bound signs, an even more marginal attention has been paid to non-affixal infralexical signs, such as the trag- of tragique, which nevertheless constitute a significant portion of the minimal constituents of a language. After clarifying the criteria that define them, in relation to the diversity of affixal constructions or in terms of form variation, the procedure leading to the exhaustive inventory of such bases in French is described step by step, using the treatment of adjectives in French as an example. Are further discussed i) the difficulties encountered at each step, especially regarding the polymorphy of the bases, and how to face them; ii) the question of the integration of a dictionary of bound bases in French into existing electronic dictionaries; iii) the question of the nature of the semantic description such bases may receive, given the impossibility to provide definition of what they would refer to; iv) the question of what information each entry must provide to be complete. It is shown, in particular, that the core element in the lexicographical description of these bases is the description of their conditions of use, and therefore of the presuppositions inherited by the words in which they are used. Several illustrations of this lexicographical treatment of bound bases are provided.
References
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