How should abbreviations be added to the lexicon itself?

[B Kh]

For example, a learner using a Sinhala dictionary might see the abbreviation  නා.ප්‍ර. in a monolingual Sinhala dictionary and not know that it is short for නාම ප්‍රකෘතිය (meaning: noun stem). 

Should I treat  නා.ප්‍ර. as a variant of නාම ප්‍රකෘතිය and have an "abbreviation" variant? Or do I create separate entries for each of them and then cross reference them? In one of the places I need to explain just a little what a noun stem is in the definition. I had been doing this:

නා.ප්‍ර. n. noun stem. Abbreviation for නාම ප්‍රකෘතිය

and

නාම ප්‍රකෘතිය n. noun stem. Abbreviated as  නා.ප්‍ර.

But I probably don't want to have that longer definition in both places. But doing a cross ref seems a bit odd because if you are already seeing the longer definition in one place (I'm assuming නාම ප්‍රකෘතිය) there is no point in sending people to  නා.ප්‍ර. Cross refs have to work both ways, after all. I could of course just put in the definition field

නා.ප්‍ර. n. noun stem. See නාම ප්‍රකෘතිය.

But then in the above case නාම ප්‍රකෘතිය isn't linked. It's just text.

Thoughts?

[Tony Naden]

Coming from a Toolbox background, I would say this is a main and variant situation.  The main entry has the information that you don't want to keep repeating, and the variants (of dialect, spelling, abbreviation &c.) refer to the main entry one-way.

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[kevin_...@sil.org]

Here are some pictures of what Tony’s suggestion might look like in FLEx.

 

In the Lists area, adding a Variant Type:

 

 

Main entry in the lexicon:

 

 

Variant entry in the lexicon:

 

 

In the Publication, it could then look like this:

 

 

 

Best wishes,

Kevin

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[B Kh]

Thank you Tony and Kevin!!

Yes, I think I will go the variant route. 

> නා. Abbreviation of නාම පදය

This will fit the pattern of having to go to the main entry to read all the results. Thanks!