What is new in EDD Online 4.0?

ABSTRACT:Some mistakes and imperfections in the retrieval software of EDD Online 3.0 motivated the director of the Innsbruck University project to start a revision and to create EDD Online 4.0. This paper describes the main modifications from 3.0 to 4.0, as well as the major problems and solutions involved in the digitization of such a complex dictionary structure as Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary (EDD). The changes range from an improved identification of text when disturbed by irregular spaces, capitalization, punctuation, abbreviations, numbers, and special characters, which often had to be clumsily coded, to the correct identification and classification of the thousands of sources that Wright used in his EDD. The paper provides evidence that justifies the new version 4.0, but is also meant as a practical guide for compilers and editors of digital corpora, particularly in the field of lexicography.