A Standardized Dictionary of Icelandic Verbs

Traditionally, entries in dictionaries, including historical dictionaries, are organized on semantic principles, and syntactic features only play a secondary role. This holds for all wordclasses, even for verbs where syn­ tactic information is both varied and of great importance. In this paper it is maintained that the characteristics of each wordclass should be given more attention. This is especially important in the description of Icelandic verbs, which vary structuredly to a great extent, due to the complexity of the case-system and other related factors. These complexities must take a prominent place in the description given in any dictionary of Icelandic. The Achilles’ heel of large scale dictionaries, where the aim is com­ pleteness of description and authentic citations are used, is the difficulty in the retrieval of information. By treating the verbs as an independent project, and making full use of their characteristic traits, the perspective taken in SDIV differs from the traditional one. Syntax is superordinated to semantics in the description of the verb, which greatly facilitates the ease of access to information contained in each entry, as a fixed format will then suffice for all verbs. The text of the entries in the proposed dictionary is produced by stages, based on an anedysis o f individual citations for each verb contained in the database. The end result, produced by the database itself, connected to the layout-program is a finished dictionary entry, needing only minor revisions. 1 The Diversity of Historical Dictionaries A large sca le h istorica l d iction a ry con ta in s a great variety o f d iverse in form ation on th e v oca b u la ry represented. A reader brow sin g through a w ork o f this type w ill o ften n otice changes tak in g p lace in the language; new w ords w ill appear and b e co m e com m on and oth ers w ill b ecom e anachron ic and be forgotten . T h e reader can , g iven sufficient perseverance in the stu dy o f individual entries, obtain a w ealth o f in form ation on changes in the use o f ind ividual w ords through tim e, b o th in regard to m eaning and structure. I f the reader is w illing to im m erse