Principles of Lexicographic Coverage of the Ulch Language

Abstract

The paper outlines basic principles of compiling the corpora and structuring a vocabulary entry for the prospective Ulch-Russian dictionary. The author presents an overview of the lexicographical materials related to the Ulch language that have been published in the 20th – 21st centuries. The conclusion is drawn that, due to the particular circumstances of the compilation and, sometimes, the intended functions (school instruction, comparative analysis), the existing dictionaries tend to have limited scope of lexicographical data in the entries and non-traditional approach to structuring components. In order to create a bilingual dictionary that covers the lexicon of the nearly-extinct Ulch language as much as possible while providing an appropriate summarization of phonetical, semantical, grammatical and pragmatic features for each lexical unit, a different approach is suggested. The new strategy involves exploring and reworking a number of specific parameters. On the macro-level, issues related to the placement of collocations and phonetic variations of the lexemes, polishing the cross-reference system, discerning the lexical items that can belong to different grammatical classes but lack clear indicators, and organizing homonyms are discussed. On the micro-level, the author drafts out an entry structure consisting of several zones and comments on the contents of each one. In particular, points such as selecting canonical forms, using different types of labeling, properly representing the semantic structure by selecting and grouping the equivalents, illustrating the lexeme’s pragmatic potential remain the focus of discussion.