Lessico di Linguistica on line:
A Linguistic Lexicon Archive
Prof. Paola Cotticelli
Dr. Alfredo Trovato
Dr. Alfredo Rizza
From Paper to Web:
Laboratorio del Lessico di Linguistica (LLdL)
Paola Cotticelli conceived the project
of a Linguistics Research Centre,
through which enhancing this field
of study at the University of
Verona.
In 2008 she founded the LLdL:
http://www.dllsc.univr.it/dol/main?ent=biblio
cr&id=119
The main objective of LLdL is to
provide scholars with a web
platform for the linguistic
research, aiming to increase the
communication and the networking.
Treading the Path of the Editorial Project
• In agreement with the
editorial project of Lessico
di Linguistica, the LLdL is
structured around 3 main
thematic areas:
1. Metalinguistic research;
2. History of Writing
Systems;
3. Socio-economic Sciences
and Humanities (SSH).
History of Writing System
• LLdL promotes a new
approach to this field of
study, combining linguistic,
archeological and
epigraphical perspectives.
• LLdL undertakes the study
of Epigraphic corpora
through a dedicated software
(B.A.S.P.).
• Several small and medium
size projects are actually
running at LLdL:
• Greek inscriptions of
Magna Graecia;
• Graphematic Interference
between Greek and
Elimian in the
inscriptions of Sicily.
• Runic Inscriptions in
Oldest Fuþark;
• Comparative analysis of
Old English and Frisian
Runes;
Socio-economic science and Humanities:
Brand Naming Process
• Since 2005 Paola Cotticelli • In this perspective, LLdL
and her staff started
provides input for
Infrastructures:
analysing the linguistic
– Indicators of linguistic trends in
structure of Brands.
Branding;
• In the last decade, emphasis
– Databases of Trademarks in
synchronic and diachronic
has been placed on linguistic
dimension;
research, which gives an
– Cooperation with international
essential contribution across
academic partners for the
contrastive analysis of brands
the theme of Branding on
across borders.
several aspects.
Lessico di Linguistica:
the Printed Edition
In 2007 Edizioni dell’Orso published the printed version:
The Printed Edition
– 910 pages;
– Illustrated with several
diagrams, tables (IPA) and
thematic maps (language of the
world, logic and set theory
symbols);
– Provided with multilingual
concordance;
– About 13.000
bibliographical
entries.
Metalinguistic research
• This branch of LLdL is dealing with the problems
regarding the development of Digital
Metalinguistic Archive.
• The objective is to create a comprehensive
database of metalinguistic records, containing a
brief definition of the linguistic items as well as a
reference list of the main related titles.
• The goal is to achieve a wider exploitation of
Lessico di Linguistica as a linguistic research tool.
Metalinguistic ambiguity
• Instance of the entries
Lessico di Linguistica (p. 524):
• Monema: (a) in senso Martinettiano, come unità minima
portatrice di significato, (distinti in lessicali, grammaticali,
funzionali, autonomi, indipendenti),
• articolati in classi aperte [m. lessicali = semantemi] e
chiuse [m. grammaticali = morfemi].
• Dallo strutturalismo americano il concetto di m. viene
sostituito da quello di “morfema”; il semema, nel senso di
“morfema lessicale libero”; morfema come morfema
grammaticale legato; (b) come entità sul piano
dell’espressione nella teoria sintattica di Heger-Heringer,
scuola tedesca degli anni ’70, che prevede il semema sul
piano del significato.
The State of the Art (part I):
Surfing on the Net
• A brief overview of the projects still running
on the Net highlights the huge number of
electronic glossaries, lexica and dictionaries
of Linguistics.
• Most of them didn’t achieve the final
version.
• A high percentage of projects show no
upload in the last decade.
Some instances
Glossary of linguistic terms:
Summer Institute of Linguistics (Dallas,
Texas)
–932 entries;
–An extract from the LinguaLinks
Library, Version 5.0 published on
CD-ROM by SIL International, 2003.
–Every lemma is recorded through the
question “What is X?”
–The entry is structured around 4
elements:
• Definition;
• Discussion;
• Generic;
• Sources
Linguistic Glossary
• It has been developed by Dr Lixun Wang (Open University of Hong
Kong), who has also provided Chinese translations.
• The list currently contains over 500 lemmas.
• The Glossary contains Audio files as well as a concordance system
(which often doesn’t work!!!).
• The definitions are vague and incoherent
Cognitive Science Initiative:
Language Lexicon
• The project, launched in
the summer of 1997 by the
University of Houston,
includes a basic lexicon of
over 70 key terms as well
as a "focus page" by
Professor James Garson
on basic concepts in the
theory of grammar.
• Last update: 2 September
1997
Lexicon of Linguistics
•
•
•
•
•
Provided by the Utrecht Institute of Linguistics (OTS).
500 lemmas (c.)
Bibliographical references: 479 titles (from 1905 to 2002).
Possibility of submitting new entries.
Spina (1997: 169): “La raccolta si limita alle 4 aree della linguistica
generativa”.
• Bianchi-Marcaccio (2002: 63): “Taglio sincronico troppo reciso […],
focalizzazione unilaterale del paradigma dominante”.
DLM
(Dizionario del Lessico Metalinguistico)
• Provided by a consortium of
Italian Universities;
• It started in 1995 and lasted
until 2005, thanks to three
different National Research
Projects (PRIN);
• DLM is hosted on Perugia’s
University website;
• The Bibliography consists of
211 entries (from 1875 to
2004).
• Still a lot of blind hyperlinks;
• No upload in the last five
years.
The Progress beyond
the State of the Art
•
•
•
•
The Lessico di Linguistica provides currently:
A subject-indexed bibliography of 13.000 entries;
References on 250 languages in the world;
The Bibliography cover a period from 1861 to 2007.
The bibliographic entries have been already stored by a
Reference Management Software Package.
The software allows us both to generate a list of linguistic
entries, as keywords, and to retrieve the bibliographic
records by searching under these keywords.
The Management Software Package:
Endnote
• EndNote® is the
industry standard
software tool for
publishing and
managing
bibliographies on the
Windows and
Macintosh desktop.
• It allows us to store
bibliographic entries
in a standard format;
Per aspera ad …Web:
the Linguistics Lexicon Archive
• In the first step, the
project started out to
collect a subject-indexed
bibliography, providing
a list of published
literature on different
topics.
• It clearly involved
countless hours of
typing and interpreting
style requirements when
creating bibliographies.
The Second Phase
• In the second step, the stored data will be converted into
a relational database, designed with SQL, which
properly will represent the metalinguistic archive hosted
on the LLdL website.
This step will try to quickly realize the
standardization of the present set of data
and through a partially automatized data
conversion the on line publication
Thus we will give preference to systems that
allow low expenses in term of funds and
work:
- essentiality of the interface
- Input process for new material easy on the
side of the user
Thanks!