Re: [FLEx] Digest for flex-list@googlegroups.com - 1 update in 1 topic

[Dawut G]

Can't you set the minor entry to non-published? Then it won't appear in the main dictionary the vernacular-English way round, but should appear in the reversal dictionary.

David

On 23 May 2016 at 21:58, <flex...@googlegroups.com> wrote:

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a question about reversals

Kevin Warfel <kevin_...@sil.org>: May 23 10:39AM -0400 I have not worked much with reversal dictionaries yet, so I’m hoping this will be an easy question to answer for those of you who have experience in this area.       Summary:   How can I get an English or French word to appear as a headword (or whatever the correct term is) in my reversal dictionary without its vernacular equivalent being according status of a headword or minor entry in my main dictionary? For example, how can I get this entry in my English reversal   wish n cààlʋ   without having any kind of entry for cààlʋ in the main dictionary, since it’s a regular, predictable derived form in the language? (The verb cà ‘want’ is a headword in the main dictionary.)       Details:   In Phuien [pug], a Gur language of West Africa, nominalization of verbs is a very productive process in the language. For just about every verb I’ve encountered, a suffix can be added that will result in a noun that means something like “the action associated with X”. In English we do roughly the same thing via the gerund. Unfortunately, in English the gerund has the same form as the progressive form of the verb, so the linguistically naïve native speaker often confuses the two. In case-marking languages, such as Latin, the forms are more easily distinguished.       Here are a couple of examples from English of verbs and their gerund forms, with an example sentence for the latter:   run running Running takes energy.   walk walking Walking is good exercise.       Nominalized verbs in Phuien are often translated in English by either the gerund or by the phrase “the act of X.” The nominalized verb forms are so regular, so predictable, that I am reluctant to include them even as minor entries in the Phuien-French-English dictionary I am working on. Any votes for or against my thinking on this?       However, there are certain nominalized verbs that correlate semantically to specific English (or French) nouns. Here are some examples:   want wish (n)   steal theft   think thought (n)       So here’s my question:   When the phuien verb (e.g., the one for “want”) can be nominalized by the normal, predictable, very productive process of adding a nominalizing suffix to it, but the result has an equivalent in the analysis language that is an “independent” lexical entry, how do I exclude the phuien nominalized form from the phuien dictionary, but include the independent word in the analysis language in the reversal? That is, how do I get a reversal entry like this:   wish n cààlʋ   while avoiding a (minor) entry in my main dictionary like this:   cààlʋ nom. of cà?       I would not want reversal entries for all nominalized verb forms because many of them do not have a one-word equivalent other than the gerund in English, so I don’t think the reversal entry would be of any use to an English speaker searching for a way to express something in Phuien, since the entry for the verb will be right there and knowledge of the grammar leads directly to the required form.   run v cʋa   *running n cʋaàlʋ       Thanks for any help or insights from you who are more experienced than I!   Kevin       Kevin Warfel   Associate Dictionary and Lexicography Services Coordinator   a.k.a. Dictionary Development Coordinator   SIL International       Current technology makes it possible to provide those translating into just about any language with both a dictionary and a thesaurus in the target language, the standard tools of the trade for professional translators, so why are mother-tongue translators in minority languages still expected to do their work without these tools? Ask me about *Rapid Word Collection* after reading about it at rapidwords.net <http://www.rapidwords.net/>.

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