Tasks

1. Give detailed examples, from at least 3 different kinds of dictionary, of:
• metadata
• types of lexical information
2. Create definitions by nearest kind and specific differences for
• hip-hop
• love
• lasagna
3. Describe in detail what is the reality and what are artefacts in
• 3 of the models discussed in the section on models

1. See the following table: html_tabelle_longterm_hw (html, 2 KB)
2. hip-hop: A kind of a youth lifestyle
love: A deep adoring feeling for a person
lasagna: An Italian dish made of layers of large pasta pieces, chopped meat/vegetables and a sauce.

3. Models like a model train, a picture in a dictionary or a photo only represent reality, but are not "real" themselves. A person showed on a photo is only a image, a model train might look like a real train with all its details, but it can't be used the way a real train is used.

• Organisation
  In my opinion both classes and the slides were in general well structured and mostly easy to follow.


• Portfolio
  The idea of a portfolio is a good one, but it might have been better, not to recquire to put it on the web because if some students are not that familiar with running a website, doing HTML and so on, they may have a double work load: do all tasks and exercises for the class and simultaneously investing time to cope with constructing a web page.


• Workload
  Sometimes the tasks were easy, but still recquired a good amount of time, e.g. researching on the web or detailled descriptions of the macrostructure, megastructure, etc. of a particular dictionary. This is a lot of information, which also has to be sorted and written down (plus the "translation" of everything into HTML for the portfolio).
  Sometimes the homework was revised in class, but sometimes it was not. I would have found it better to have a brief revision of homework on every session because it might be that someone thinks his homework to be well done, but is actually not aware of some mistakes and in the worst case only gets to know about them after making the same mistakes in the final exam.

The topic of the lecture was computational lexicography and how to create a dictionary. During the lecture we also came across concordances and the KWIC concordance.

Quiz

1. What is a KWIC concordance?
2. Which are the two main components of lexicon construction based on empirical data?

1. KWIC concordance is aspecial kind of corpus-based dictionary. For each word of a corpus is given its context of occurrence (e.g. left/right contexts)
2. Data acquisition (especially if it is a dictionary or a database of a hardly explored language or of a special dialect) and external lexical evaluation (you have to evaluate the utility for the user)

This lecture dealt with semantics. First, the main types of definition (e.g. syntagmatical and paradigmatical definitions) and microstructure were revised again, then we went on to standard dictionary definitions and semantic relations.

Homework

• semantic components
• semantic relations
• semantic fields
• definitions

Ginger Beer

Fermentation has been used by mankind for thousands of years for raising bread, fermenting wine and brewing beer.
The products of the fermentation of sugar by baker's yeast
Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a fungus) are ethyl alcohol and
carbon dioxide.
Carbon dioxide causes bread to rise and gives effervescent
drinks their bubbles.
This action of yeast on sugar is used to 'carbonate'
beverages, as in the addition of bubbles to champagne.

examples for semantic components:

• Saccharomyces cerevisiae (a fungus)

• "champagne", "wine" and "beer" are co-hyponyms of the hyperonym "beverage"
• Saccharomyces cerevisiae is a synonym to "fungus"

• "fermentation", "fermentation of sugar", "fermenting""products of fermentation", "beer", "wine", "champagne", "beverage", "brewing", "ethyl alcohol"
• "carbon dioxide", "to carbonate"
• "effervescent", "bubbles"

• "Fermentation has been used (...) for raising bread, fermenting wine,and brewing beer"
• "Carbon dioxide causes bread to rise and gives effervescent drinks their bubbles"

The contents of this session were all referring to the major topic of syntax: syntactic categories (e.g. parts of speech), structural and semiotic relations and text structure on examples of various texttypes (recipe, website,...)

On December, 12 a guest lecturer did a lecture about Toolbox, which is a kind of a database designed for field work purposes. "Toolbox" analyses and stores text and converts it into an ordered dictionary.

The lecture was dedicated to pronunciation, representation and description of sounds.

Homework

• List
• consonants of German which do not occur in English
• consonants of English which do not occur in German
• vowels of German which do not occur in English
• vowels of English which do not occur in German
• List
• characters of German which do not occur in English
• characters of English which do not occur in German
• 5 English graphemes containing more than one character
• 5 German graphemes containing more than one character

• German consonants not occurring in English:
• sch
• ch (pronounced like in "Chemie")
• English consonants not occurring in German:
• the "th"-sound
• the English "r"-sound
• vowels of German not occurring in English:
• "ö", "ä", "ü"
• "eu"
• "ei"
• vowels of English not occurring in German:
• "ou" (like in "our")
• "a" (as in "fat")
• "au" (as in "laugh")
• German characters not occurring in English:
• "ä", "ü", "ö"
• "ß"
• English graphemes with more than one character:
• "th"
• "ch"
• "ea" (--> "head")
• "gh" (--> "laugh")
• "ti" (--> "exception")
• German graphemes with more than one character:
• "sch"
• "ch"
• "eu"
• "ie"
• "tsch"

The lecture dealt with the surface and deep structure of dictionaries. Since semasiological dictionaries have a table as a basic form (with rows represented by lexical entries and columns representing lexical information) the next topic was dedicated to tables and how to make and format them in word processors and HTML.

This lecture's topic was "Applied Linguistics" and how to apply text theory e.g. by formatting a text.

Homework

1. What are text objects? Name two and give typical properties.
2. What are document objects? Name one and give typical properties.
3. What are paragraph styles? Name two types of paragraph. For each type, give their typical properties.

1. characters: properties of characters are font, size, colour; characters can also be underlined, made bold or be written in italics.
   tables: properties of tables include borders, number of rows/columns, spacing, head-row and also properties of the characters which fill out the cells
2. page: properties of a page are the size, the margin, header and footer
3. Paragraph styles in word processors format paragraphs by giving a clear structure to them. Paragraph properties are e.g. headings and subheadings (heading 1, heading 2,...), spacing, indentation. In word processors these properties are usually predefined in the "Default"-settings, but a user can alter these settings to make them more appropriate for his purpose.

The lecture on January, 18 dealt with lexical and sentence semantics, semantic components and semantic relations.

Tasks

1. Find examples of at least 3 appraisive expressions in German and English
2. What would be a prototypical
• car
• dog
3. Make your own definition for "casting show"
4. Describe the meaning of
• The Scissor Sisters sing
• Today the Scissor Sisters sing

1. English:
   • ... the greatest event...
   • absolutely boring
   • beautiful
   German:
   • super
   • total gut
   • langweilig
   
   
2. prototypical car: depends on the country from where you are or for people from which country you have to find this prototype; e.g. in Germany/for Germans you probably would name VW or Mercedes
   prototypical dog: e.g. a shepherd


3. A "casting show" is a show which searches for talented singers/actors/dancers/...


4. • The Scissor Sisters sing: general statement
   • Today the Scissor Sisters sing: a statement referring to a special date

Previous week's topic ("Structure") was continued. During the first part of this lecture we looked again on structural relations. After this revision followed the introduction of semiotic relations and of the sign hierarchy. Afterwards we looked at the text structure of several examples (e.g. a recipe, a website, an instruction).

Homework

1. Identify the syntagmatic relations in the following constructions:
• “department store detective”
• “three people saw a woman and her dog in the shop”
2. Identify the paradigmatic relations in the following sets (describe similarities and differences):
• {/p/, /t/, /k/}
• {“object”, “furniture”, “chair”, “table”}
• {“walk”, “drive”, “run”, “ride”}

1. In " department store detective" there is a syntagmatic relation between "department", "store" and "detective". This relation determines the word order: you cannot say e.g. "store department detective" or "store detective department", at least not without changing the meaning.
   The syntagmatic relations in "three people saw a woman and her dog in the shop” "glue" together the nouns and the verb as subject/object and predicate.
2. The items all belong to the same category: {/p/, /t/, /k/} are devoiced consonants. "Paradigmatical relations" mean relations of choice, which in turn means that you can "replace" e.g. /p/ with /t/ and the result would still make sense ("pool" vs. "tool"), however, the meaning can be different. The same is with the other sets: {"object”, “furniture”, “chair”, “table"} and {“walk”, “drive”, “run”, “ride”} belong to the same wordfield ("furniture"/ "verbs of movement") and are replaceable by each other with possible change in meaning.

The lecture introduced the topic of syntax with the subtopics "Structure" and "Structural relations", "Parts of speech" and "Phrasal categories".

The topic of this lecture was "Acoustic Phonetics", especially speech waveform and spectral transform (which can be done e.g. by using special software like Praat

Homework

Download the Praat software on to your computer:

• install it
• read an audio file
• experiment with the software

The audio file used for this is the phrase "A tiger and a mouse were walking in the field".

This is what the waveform of the whole sentence looks like:

You also can select parts and draw waveforms of them; this is what "walking" looks like:

This is the "walk-" part of the word:

Take a look at models of the ear: summarise the
functions of the outer ear, the middle ear, the inner ear

outer ear:

• collecting sound vibrations and carrying them to the eardrum
• wax glands: producing wax to prevent foreign objects from traveling down the ear canal

• vibrations of ossicles amplify and are transmitted into the inner ear (cochlea)
• eustachian tube: controlling air pressure and bringing in fresh oxygen

• structures for hearing and balance
• moving of hair cells in the cochlea produces electric impulses which are sent to the brain and interpreted there as sound information

The lecture's topic was morphology and word formation.

Homework

The answers to these questions are here

"Jabberwocky" by Lewis Carroll as an example for word creation

original
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.
Beware the Jabberwock, my son!
The jaws that bite, the claws that catch!
Beware the Jubjub bird, and shun
The frumious Bandersnatch!
He took his vorpal sword in hand:
Long time the manxome foe he sought
So rested he by the Tumtum tree,
And stood awhile in thought.
And as in uffish thought he stood,
The Jabberwock, with eyes of flame,
Came whiffling through the tulgey wood,
And burbled as it came!
One, two! One, two! And through and through
The vorpal blade went snicker-snack!
He left it dead, and with its head
He went galumphing back.
And hast thou slain the Jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!
He chortled in his joy.
Twas brillig, and the slithy toves
Did gyre and gimble in the wabe;
All mimsy were the borogoves,
And the mome raths outgrabe.

German translation (found on Wikipedia)
Verdaustig war's und glasse Wieben
rotterten gorkicht im Gemank;
Gar elump war der Pluckerwank,
Und die gabben Schweisel frieben.
»Hab acht vorm Zipferlak, mein Kind!
Sein Maul ist beiß, sein Griff ist bohr!
Vorm Fliegelflagel sieh dich vor,
Dem mampfen Schnatterrind!«
Er zückt' sein scharfbefifftes Schwert,
Den Feind zu futzen ohne Saum;
Und lehnt' sich an den Dudelbaum,
Und stand da lang in sich gekehrt.
In sich gekeimt, so stand er hier,
Da kam verschnoff der Zipferlak
Mit Flammenlefze angewackt
Und gurgt in seiner Gier!
Mit eins! Mit zwei! und bis aufs Bein!
Die biffe Klinge ritscheropf!
Trennt er vom Hals den toten Kopf,
Und wichernd springt er heim.
»Vom Zipferlak hast uns befreit?
Komm an mein Herz, aromer Sohn!
O blumer Tag! O schlusse Fron!«
So kröpfte er vor Freud.
Verdaustig war's und glasse Wieben
rotterten gorkicht im Gemank;
Gar elump war der Pluckerwank,
Und die gabben Schweisel frieben.

The topic is still morphology (=words and their parts) and word formation.

Homework

A derivation creates a new word by adding an affix to the stem. An inflection only relates the word to its context (e.g. by turning it from singular to plural).

What is the difference between derivation and
compounding?

derivation
• stem + affix (+ affix + affix + affix...)
compounding
• stem + stem (+ stem + stem + stem...)

Collect 5 longish words and

• divide them into morphemes
• show construction of a word from their stems as tree diagrammes

out|stand|ing|ly|

green|house| effect

ex|press|ion

con|text|ual

This lecture's topic were the components of words (especially morphemes) and word formation, particularly compounding.

Homework

Find compounds in English with a head that is a

a noun
• timetable
• doorway
• sky diver

a verb
• to breakdance
• to overwrite
• to overlook

an adjective
• grassgreen
• headstrong
• snow-white

Find compounds in English with a modifier that is a

noun
• screenplay
• sketch book
• football

verb
• giveaway
• password
• driveway

adjective
• greenhouse
• blueberry
• blueprint

preposition
• to underline
• to overcome
• overview

"Beowulf" is the oldest surviving epic in British literature which describes the adventures of a great Scandinavian warrior of the 6th century.

Com þa to recede rinc siðian,
dreamum bedæled. Duru sona onarn,
fyrbendum fæst, syþðan he hire folmum
æthran;

Came to the building warrior traveling,
dram deprived. Door soon pushed back,
forged bar fast, since his hand touched it;

==>
• Com = came
• þa = then
• dreamum = dream (--> Latin ending)
• duru = door
• sona = soon

Homework:

Development of English

• The "start" of English language by the Celts; Latin
• 5th-11th century: Old English period; Viking influence on the language
• 11th-15th century: Middle English period; influence by Norman French, Latin, Greek, French
• Modern English; in the 17th century division into many branches like American English, Canadian English, etc. due to expansions; language influenced by Spanish, American Indian etc.

What is the significance of Celtic/Latin?

Celtic and Latin had a lot of influence on English, several words and toponyms from these two languages has been taken over (--> examples of borrowing from Latin see here) and enriched the language.

English today:

• Northern English (e.g. Geordie -> Northumberland, Cumbrian)
• East Midlands English ( e.g. in Derbyshire)
• West Midlands English (e.g. Brummie -> Birmingham)
• East Anglian English (e.g. Norfolk/Suffolk dialect)
• South East England (e.g. Cockney/London)
• West Country dialects (e.g. in Cornwall)
• Scottish English + Glaswegian
• Welsh English + Pembrokshire dialect

• Australia, New Zealand
• Canada
• USA
• UK
• some of the African countries
• some Caribbean countries

Quiz 1

• Why are Portuguese and Spanish the official national languages
  of South American states?
• Why are varieties of Dutch among the official national
  languages of Indonesia and South Africa?
• Why is English the official national language of the USA,
  Australia, New Zealand?

---> colonal expansion

In which African countries are the following Indo-European
languages among the official national languages?

• English
• French
• Portuguese

See the following table: IE_languages_Africa (html, 1 KB)

Quiz 2

Where did the Celts originate?

hypothesis:

• Pontic-Caspian steppes
• Basque people
• Urnfield culture (preeminent in Central Europe during late Bronze Age)

Name 3 Celtic town names in the area of modern
Germany and give their meanings:

• Remagen ( meaning "king's field"/"king's area")
• Dormagen
• Andernach

Where do the Celts live now?

• Brittany
• Cornwall
• Ireland
• Isle of Man
• Scotland
• Wales

What is their significance for English studies?

• influence of English (e.g. many town names have a Celtic origin)
• Celts --> Gaelic language (now spoken in Ireland and in North-West Scotland), Welsh

This lecture dealt with the etymology of words and its subtopics like sound change (incl. Grimm's Law, High German Sound Shift, Great Vowel Shift), semantic change, word creation and borrowing/copying words from other languages

Homework

Borrowing/Copying in English and German:

see table here: Borrowing_Copying (html, 2 KB)

Etymologies of "husband","geil"

• husband: Old Norse: "husbondi" ("hus"="house" + "bondi"/"buandi" --> "householder") ---> Old English: "husbonda"---> Middle English: "huseband"
• geil: derives from "gaila" (Germanic) or "geiligr"/"gailan" (Nordic) meaning "beautiful"

Examples of OE and Old High German

Old High German: wazzar, finf, zunga
Old English: waeter, fif

Quiz 1

Why is a portfolio important?
What should a portfolio contain, and how are these
components defined?
Why should the portfolio be on a website?
How do you make a website?

This quiz has already been answered in this entry.

Quiz 2

What is a website?
What is a hypertext? Give examples! Google again
What is a text, what are its main properties?
How do these properties relate

• to the mind?
• to the world?

The answers are to be found as well.

Homework

Task: Prepare reports for discussion on ...

• What are the following, and how old are they ?

• Indo-European
• Proto-Germanic
• Old English
• Middle English
• Early Modern English

Indo-European:

• language family containing major European languages, languages of the Indian subcontinent, South-West asia, Central Asia; the Indo-Iranian languages form the largest sub-branch
• largest number of speakers (ca. 3 billion native speakers)
• Anatolian languages: earliest attended branch (ca. 4000-5000 BC); now extinct
• divided into the Satem Group (easterm languages) and the Centum group (western languages such as Germanic and Celtic)

Proto-Germanic:

• ancestor of the German language family
• spoken in North-West Europe in the later part of the 1_st millennium

Old English:

• "Anglo-Saxon"
• spoken in parts of England and Southern Scotland in 500/600 - 1100 AD
• influenced by Germanic languages, Latin, Scandinavian (due to the Vikings' invasion) and Celtic

Middle English:

• spoken from 1100-1500 AD
• language influenced by Norman French (because of the Norman Kingdom that establishes after the Battle of Hastings in 1066) until 1200
• after 1200: English is spoken again but is different from Old English
• ca. 10 000 French words are taken over into the vocabulary

Early Modern English:

• spoken in 1500-1800
• example: Shakespeare
• enlargement of vocabulary due to the introduction of printing and easier access to books

Examples:

The table with the examples is to be found here: Examples_table (html, 1 KB)

What are the main differences between English and German?

• cases (German: Akkusativ, Dativ,...; English: direct/indirect object)
• pronouns (German: "du", "Sie"; English: "you")
• conjugation of verbs (German: "ich mache", "du machst"; English: "I do", "you do")
• determiners (German: "der/die/das"; English: "the")
• adjectives (German: congruent with the noun: "blaue Hose", "blaues Auto"; English: non-congruent with nouns: "blue trousers", "blue car")
• spelling (German: nouns always are written with a capital initial letter)

This session was dedicated to the structure of a dictionary.

Quiz 1

What is the megastructure?
klick

What is the macrostructure?
klick

What is a semasiological dictionary?
klick

What is an onomasiological dictionary?
klick

Quiz 2 (microstructure)

How many types of lexical information can you find?

• spelling
• pronunciation
• definition
• examples
• genus information for substantives

Is the microstructure of a semasiological dictionary typically a list, a tree or a network?
a list

What kind of structure do the combined macrostructure and microstructure of a semasiological dictionary have?
The structure is a table.

Quiz 3

What is the microstructure of a dictionary?
klick

What kind of lexical information is contained in a dictionary's microstructure?

lexical information within lexical entries:
• meaning: pragmatics and semantics --> definition, examples
• structure: syntax and morphology --> words' construction, place within a sentence
• appearance: orthography and pronunciation

Describe the two dimensions of tyoes of lexical information
These are microstructure and macrostructure.

Quiz 4 (mesostructure)

How do lexical entries relate to each other?
Often entries are linked with each other, e.g. when a word that is defined in one entry appears in another.

How do lexical entries relate to text corpora?
Sometimes an example sentence is given in the definition of a particular word. This example might be an invented one but it can also be an literature example taken from a different book. So there are not only relations between different entries within the same dictionary but also relations between the dictionary and other literature.

Quiz 5

What is the mesostructure of a dictionary?
klick

Give examples of mesostructural elements concerning

• linguistic description references:

• cross-references between related entries
• hump Höcker m, Buckel m, ~back --> hunchback
  (from Langenscheidts Universal-Wörterbuch Englisch-Deutsch Deutsch-Englisch, Langenscheidt KG, Berlin und München, 1997)

• corpus references:
• hunchback (...) "One day, when the tailor was hard at work, a little hunchback came and sat at the entrance of the shop, and began to sing and play his tambourine."
  (taken from thefreedictionary.com)

Homework:

Take one of your dictionaries and describe in as much detail as possible its megastructure, macrostructure, microstructure and mesostructure.

Dictionary used: Langenscheidts Universal-Wörterbuch Englisch-Deutsch Deutsch-Englisch, Langenscheidt KG, Berlin und München, 1997

Megastructure:

• cover
• short list of the most important abbreviations
• table of contents (ordered according to letters, e.g. "A ------ pp. 11-26")
• title page
• table of contents (for the entire dictionary)
• information on how pronunciation, orthography differences between BrE and AmE, etc. are marked within the entries
• list of abbreviations
• entries
• appendix containing numerals, measures of length/temperature/currency, list of irregular words
• table of contents (again according to letters)
• explanation of IPA-characters

• spelling
• pronunciation
• translation
• genus/numerus
• examples for use

• links between entries
• links between entry and mini-grammar (e.g. use of abbreviations)