PRESENTATIONS,OPI IONSA DREV EW
Dušan Gabrovšek
In a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical VVordbooks
■ Abstract
The paper discusses general-purpose, mostly
monolingual, non-alphabetical or partly alpha-
betical (mostly topical) English-language referen¬
ce sources that lag behind the A-Z dictionary in
overall importance. Among such sources, the
thesaurus is the most significant type, though it
is far from being the only one. What they have
in common is that they have been designed to
offer lexical assistance when it comes to ques-
tions other than word/phrase comprehension. A
variety of reference tools make use of themati-
zation in many different ways, though chiefly in
some combination with alphabetization. THE-
MATIC/TOPICAL ARRANGEMENT - as a sup-
plement to ALPHABETICAL ARRANGEMENT -
remains a useful mode in creating language re-
sources, even though there is no single univer-
sally valid method of arrangement in thematic
lexicography.
Key vvords: thesaurus, topical, thematization,
wordbook
■ Izvleček
Z eno besedo, neabecedni slovarji
Članek obravnava splošne, predvsem enojezič¬
ne, neabecedne ali le delno abecedno urejene
priročniške vire za angleški jezik, ki so podrejeni
abecedno urejenim slovarjem. Čeprav je med nji¬
mi najvažnejši tezaver, je danes za angleščino na
voljo precejšnje število jezikovnih pripomočkov
slovarskega tipa, ki so vsaj delno urejeni neabe-
cedno (največkrat tematsko). Skupno jim je to,
da želijo uporabniku pomagati pri vseh tistih lek¬
sikalnih vprašanjih, pri katerih NE gre za omogo¬
čanje razumevanja besede oz. besedne zveze v
(tujem) jeziku. Številni priročniki na razne načine
upoštevajo tematsko ureditev, a povečini v kom¬
binaciji z abecednostjo. TEMATSKOST - kot do¬
polnilo ABECEDNOSTI - je vsekakor koristen
organizacijski princip pri sestavi jezikovnih pri¬
ročnikov, čeprav zanjo nimamo splošno veljavne
metode urejanja.
Ključne besede: tezaver, tematski, tematskost,
jezikovni priročnik
INTRODUCTION
Alphabetical dictionaries are not the only, and not necessarily the best,
way of arranging the words of a language. (McCarthy 1990: 138)
Would you agree with the above observation? Many people take alphabetical
ordering for granted just because we ali learned the alphabet in the same way, as
an invariant series. It just leaves no doubts. But the literature is brimming with
ideas about semantic ordering, synonym listings, topical arrangements, thematic
list vvords, lexical fields, semantic networks... Even though the alphabetized word-
-defining or word-translating reference known as the dictionary is (stili) the order
144 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 1.44-167
In a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical VVordbooks
of the day, there is a lot for the translator to consider in terms of diversified ac-
cess to lexical items, whether print, CD-ROM, or on-line. This survey of non-
-alphabetical language reference sources in English is necessarily selective, but ju-
dicious čare has been applied in what to include and what to leave out. Note that
there may be today on offer as many as 15,000 dictionaries of various sizes and
types dedicated to the English language alone (Green 1996: 29).
When asked about the “basic” reference sources translators are likely to
need the most, the standard answer is usually: One, a general bilingual dic-
tionary (both directions); two, a comprehensive general monolingual L1 (=mother
tongue) dictionary; three, a reliable up-to-date desk-size monolingual L2 (=for-
eign language) dictionary plus a general L2 learners’ dictionary; four, a large
general encyclopedia such as the CD-ROM version of the Encyclopaedia Britan-
nica or the very comprehensive online-only Wikipedia, first started only in 2001.
But what about non-alphabetical reference sources?
DICTIONARY VS. THESAURUS
There are many situations in which what translators really need is NOT
the dictionary, but a work based on meaning associations between words and
phrases. Such works are needed e.g. when the translator knows that there is a
word for a concept but does not know it or cannot think of it, or when a given
mother-tongue word is not listed in the relevant bilingual dictionary. But is there
a “universal” complement to the dictionary? Well, at best in a restricted sense:
The thesaurus, a reference source that acts as a complement to the traditional
dictionary. A dictionary is to be consulted if users have a vvord in mind they
need information about, while a thesaurus is needed if they have a meaning in
mind which they want words forJ*J While the two do not serve the same needs,
most users seem to prefer dictionaries, chiefly for three reasons: (1) Their
straightforward A-Z arrangement; (2) because they provide manageable infor¬
mation on meaning, usage, and/or pronunciation; (3) because of the simple
one-step lookup process. “A dictionary provides information about a word by
listing its meanings, whereas a thesaurus provides information about an idea by
listing the range of words and phrases associated with it (Pitha ed. 1996: vii).
Yet many users seem oblivious of this distinction, regarding thesauruses as
being less essential and more specialized.
Thesaurus lexicography reflects “the intention to help users with encoding
tasks, which involves the grouping of words and phrases into sets of (near-)syn-
onyms so that the most appropriate items can be chosen to express a particular
concept” (Hartmann and James 1998: 143) - even if what is involved may be
more than synonymy alone.
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PREDSTAVITVE,
PFtESENTATIONS,OPIMIONSA DR V EWS Dušan Gabrovšek
Most thesauruses merely list semantically related words rather than ex-
plaining their meaning: Their approach is onomasiological (from meaning to
word), that is, one that starts with a concept and enumerates possible lexical items
whereby that concept can be expressed. Dictionaries, by contrast, are semasiological
(from word to meaning): They list words and provide their meanings. Thus
although in an alphabetical dictionary animals and zoos, for example, are far
apart, in the human mind (and hence in a thesaurus) they are close together.
General thesauruses are thus designed to help the user find the word(s) or
phrase(s) they do not know or cannot rememberJ 2 !
This duality is usually close to the distinction between alphabetical and
thematic organization (semasiological=alphabetical, onomasiological=thematic).
Onomasiological resources are chiefly useful for encoding activities (here Ll-to-
-L2 translation), and they are not particularly useful for beginners, “first becau-
se they usually demand a higher command of the target language, and second
because they will surely be more motivated to use the kind of dictionaries with
which they are most familiar in their native language, that is, alphabetical dic¬
tionaries” (Marquez Linares 1998: 167).
Despite this distinction, the two modes can be - and have been - combi-
ned in a single reference work (see below), and “combining a semasiological
with an onomasiological dictionary is an old dream of lexicographers”
(Geeraerts 2000: 80).
Although the thesaurus has been given much less attention than the dic-
tionary, the number of English thesauruses and other non-alphabetical referen¬
ce tools published in the last decade or so is quite large. 1
One important point: Whatever the nature of the non-alphabetical tools
discussed below, it is a fact that they almost never reallv ignore alphabetization.
THESAURUS DEFINED
The word thesaurus has several senses (McArthur ed. 1992: 1040); not ali
of them are relevant in this paper2 that focuses on those language reference
tools including the modern thesaurus, specifically of English, in which general
1 Some linguists (e.g. Sierra 2000) have recognized an urgent need for more “onomasiological
dictionaries.”
2 Specifically, I have ignored the documentation thesaurus, aka field thesaurus or information
retrieval thesaurus, a specialized tool comprising a classified list of terms for use in indexing
and information retrieval in specific fields of knowledge (a selection of such works can be
found on the “Web Thesaurus Compendium” website, listed in the bibliography).
146 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 144-167
In a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical VVordbooks
vocabulary items are organized semantically rather than alphabetically. The rele-
vant senses are as follovvs:
(1) a work of reference presented as a treasure house of information about
words (whether monolingual, bilingual, alphabetical, or thematic)
(2) a work of reference containing lists of associated, usually undefined, words
(such as synonyms), arranged thematically
(3) a work of reference containing such lists but presented alphabetically.
Peters and Kilgarriff (2000: 288), who define thesaurus simply as “a re-
source in which words with similar meanings are grouped together,” point out
that “the varieties” include not only Roget, Macquarie and others, produced to
help writers with word selection, but also WordNet and EuroWordNet (lexical
databases based on psycholinguistic principles), thesauruses produced manually
for use in information retrieval systems (domain-specific thesauruses), and “au-
tomatic thesauruses” produced by Processing corpora. Again, this essay is re-
stricted to the first of these.
Some linguists regard the thesaurus as a kind of dictionary; some others
equate it with the dictionary of synonyms, whether with synonym discussions
such as Belanger (ed. 1987) (discriminating synonymy), or with mere lists of
synonyms (cumulative synonymy). The two differ in kind, and are designed to
serve different needs. Second, thesauruses that do not contain synonym dis-
criminations may be either narrowly synonym-oriented or semantically broader,
the former providing “paradigmatic” information, the latter offering both “para-
digmatic” and “analogical” information (Ilson 1991: 294)l 3 f Thus Lipka (2002:
42) defines the thesaurus as a type of “non-alphabetical, thematical reference
book” in which “lexical items are arranged on a more or less intuitively deter-
mined basis of similarity of meaning and association. This principle of arrange-
ment is more linguistic than a mere alphabetical listing. Hovvever, in practice,
explicit semantic criteria are not used and normally modern linguistic research
in the area is not drawn upon.”
THE THESAURUS: ITS USE
The thesaurus can in most cases be used profitably only by proficient na-
tive speakers, since the user must, one, distinguish betvveen close and distant
synonyms, establish register, distinguish common and rare words, match collo-
cations, etc. (Rogers 1996: 81), and two, already know what the words offered
actually mean - or else s/he would be at a loss when it comes to selecting the
right word without Consulting other reference sources, which would make the
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PREDSTAVITVE,MNENJAIOCENE
PRESENTATIONS,OPI IONSA DR V EW Dušan Gabrovšek
whole process complex and time-consuming. The prime target user of such a
work is thus likely to be the adult educated native speaker looking for that
elusive word s/he already knows but cannot recall. Parenthetically, the same
type of user can be said to be the prime user of synonym discriminations, of
which - despite several recent rather superficial attempts - the best two were
published way back in the 1960s (Hayakawa 1968/1971 and Gove ed. 1968).
While such a work represents an attempt to organize vocabulary in terms
of meaning, it has often come under fire for its alleged subjective arrangement3 :
Not one of them has “uncovered the key to conceptual universality, which is at
best elusive and at worst ill-conceived” (Rogers 1996: 82). As Lipka (2002: 43)
observes, Roget’s Thesaurus4 and many later works are organized according to
logical connection and semantic likeness, that is, subject matter. They are not
based on a strict semantic classification. On the other hand, the alphabet (Mc-
Arthur 1986a: 162) is convenient because it represents an objective series known
to everybody, while thematization exists in a multitude of forms and is thus a
subjective, variant series. Yet semantic arrangement does make sense, if only be¬
cause words evoke semantic networks that can be language-specific (Kramsch
1998: 131, 17): Hence the steady flow of thematic wordbooks, often designed
to be used in conjunction with rather than instead of alphabetized sources. The
era of the electronic dictionary available on CD-ROM is likely to contribute to
the creation of an improved reference tool - one incorporating a dictionary, a
thesaurus, and a general encyclopedia, and with diversified search facilities.
The translator’s workbench (Rogers 1996: 71, 83-89), a sophisticated set of
Computer tools, is one way of doing it.
The bilingual thesaurus, general or specialized, is not the subject of this
paper. General bilingual thesauruses are few in number; the very first
English/French thesaurus I am aware of came out only in 1998 (Lamy 1998).
Designed for English-speaking users of French, it is arranged thematically, with
subdivisions into topič categories, and with two A-Z indexes - English-French
and French-English - of 8,000 words each. It contains 15 major sections (sub-
divided into a total of 142 subheadings): position, movement and travel; time;
the natural environment; everyday things; society, family and relationships; emo-
tions, feelings and attitudes; vvanting; knovvledge and thought processes; body
3 In fact, the thesaurus has been taken to task on several counts (e.g. in Crystal 1995: 158),
notably for failing to provide definitions associated with lists of semantically related items,
indicate the stylistic levels at which the lexemes are used, provide a principled basis to the
way lexemes are organized within entry paragraphs, and list also the less commonly occur-
ring lexemes.
4 Peter Mark Roget (1779-1869) was a British physician who originated the thesaurus, bring-
ing out the first edition of his Thesaurus ofEnglish Words and Phrases in 1852.
148 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 144-167
In a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical Wordbooks
and health; food and drink; work and leisure; money, worth, economy; abstract
terms to describe the world; ways of communicating; and conversational gam-
bits. It lists analogous words, phrases and expressions and includes many exam-
ples of use, aside from explaining in what contexts the different synonyms are
to be used. There are also paragraph-long explanations of certain (especially
culture-bound) terms such as le tiers promionnel (p. 185), bank cards (p. 181),
and being asked to produce documents (p. 206). Another general bilingual the-
saurus is the Serbocroatian-English work by Dajkovič (1981). Alphabetization
and thematization can be combined in both words and pictures, usually with
the addition of back-matter alphabetical indexes: e.g. Walter (ed. 1994) com-
prises 450 categories of words grouped by topič or semantic relatedness, many
subcategorized, and 48 “language-for-communication” situation-specific expres-
sions (mostly from spoken language).
THESAURUSES TODAY: TITLES AND TYPES
General monolingual thesauruses of the English language often exist in a
variety of formats, with smaller “spinoffs” of larger works, ranging from the
pocket-size editions (e.g. Schwarz ed. 1992 and Spooner comp. 1992) through
popular paperback editions (e.g. Pearsons and 0’Connor eds. 1996 and Prince-
ton Language Institute ed. 1993), ali the way to the respectable “college” pro-
ductions (e.g. Sutherland rev. and ed. 1998 and Jellis ed. 2002). Some of them
are conceptual (e.g. Daintith et al. eds. 1993, Kirkpatrick ed. 1987/1998, Kipfer
ed. 2001), but many more are alphabetical (e.g. Mackie and Butterfield eds.
2002, Hanks ed. 2000/2004, Manser ed. 2004; Urdang 1991/1997 and Jellis ed.
2002 each offer dual access to their entries). Loughridge (1990: 105) observes
that “A thesaurus is nowadays generally understood to be a list of words either
systematically arranged according to their meanings or the ideas or concepts
they express, or listed alphabetically with their synonyms, and, sometimes,
antonyms and related phrases.” Since most modern desk-size thesauruses are
alphabetical, they are different from dictionaries only in that they do not claim to
explain or define word senses but only to provide synonyms and related words.
A thesaurus can be arranged also in terms of alphabetized concepts (Ber¬
nard ed. 1990); moreover, there may be lexical information added to mere lists
of semantically related items making up thesaurus entries, chiefly in the alpha¬
betical variety (definitions of each sense of polysemous headwords and/or
example sentences showing meanings). Finally, at least one work provides unu-
sual equivalents or related items of general-language words vvhile sticking to the
familiar thesaurus format (Ehrlich 1994).
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PREDSTAVITVE
RRESENTATIONS,OPI IONSA DR VIEW
Dušan Gabrovšek
HYBRIDS AND OTHER NON-ALPHABETICAL BREEDS
As a reference tool, the general thesaurus is often felt to be of limited use-
fulness, because it merely lists alternatives and/or semantically related items,
thus performing chiefly the function of a memory jogger for proficient language
users. For this reason, a few works try to combine various types of information,
notably definitions, examples of use, and semantically related word lists organ-
ized along looser principles of semantic relatedness. Ali alphabetical, such works
were created out of the recognition that what the user seeks is “a more appro-
priate term than the one he has in mind” (Doherty ed. 1989: iii). However,
since the user may be seeking “a synonym, a word stronger or weaker in force,
one of slightly different meaning, a more starchy or more folksy word, an
idiomatic phrase that conveys the same idea, or a word that to a greater or les-
ser degree contrasts with his starting point” (Kay ed. 1976: 3a, Doherty ed.
1989: iii), there exists also e.g. Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus (Kay ed. 1976)5 , a
thesaurus-like wordbook where synonym lists are supplemented with lists of “re¬
lated” and “contrasted” words.
There are also a few hybrid works available with elements of both thesaurus-
es and dictionaries, mostly designed for advanced learners of English, also refer-
red to as onomasiological learners’ dictionaries or learners’ thesauruses, notably
a - McArthur’s pioneering Longman Lexicon (1981), organized in fourteen
pragmatic semantic fields. This work combines thematization with linguistic
semantic structuring;
b - the innovative, basic-concept-based “production dictionary,” Longman Lan¬
guage Activator™ (Summers ed. 1993/2002), and the intermediate-level, more
pedagogical but also considerably modified Essential Activator (Summers and
Gadsby eds. 1997). The 2002 Activator™ is also available on the CD-ROM
version of the 4l11 edition of the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English
(Summers ed. 2003);
- Oxford Learners JVordfinder Dictionary (Trappes-Lomax 1997), a vocabulary-
-building tool featuring 630 alphabetized keywords with reverse-dictionary
type of treatment including many contextualized examples, plus 23 front-
-mater topič areas, each with further subdivisions. It is available also on the
CD-ROM of the latest edition of Hornby’s Oxford Advanced Learner s Dic-
tionary (Wehmeier ed. 2005);
5 A later version of this work is conveniently available free of charge at http://www.m-w.com/
thesaurus.htm.
150 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 144-167
. ..Ina Phrase. the Non-Alphabetical Wordbooks
- the Cambridge bilingual Word Routes series (started 1994), a set of thematic
and illustrated dictionaries geared toward the learner of English, such as Wal-
ter (ed. 1994);
- “pedagogical” bilingual thesauruses such as Lamy (ed. 1998), or the monolin-
gual Lee (1983), the latter referred to as a “pragmalinguistic” thesaurus.
MOREOVER, THERE EXIST TODAY A HOST OF “COMBINED
WORDBOOKS”
(1) Combining features of dictionaries with those of thesauruses, whether in
two successive sections, the dictionary-part usually followed by the thesau-
rus-part; with thesaural entries appended to the relevant dictionary entries
only (e.g. Tulloch ed. 1995 and the pocket-size Makins ed. 1990); or with
the thesaurus part following the relevant dictionary entries on a page-by-
-page (“divided page”) basis, both covering the same 'section of the alpha-
bet. 6 Oxford University Press (http://www.oup.co.uk) and HarperCollins
Publishers (http://www.collins.co.uk) in particular each offer a range of
such combined works typically providing their selections of alternative
words with matching dictionary and thesaurus entries together on the same
page for one-stop lookup.
(2) Presenting “combined” lexical information in some semantics-based (the¬
matic) fashion, virtually always in some combination with alphabetization.
This may well be the optimum reference format (cf. Chapman 1974). Ma¬
jor English-language dictionary publishers now routinely offer a combined
dictionary and thesaurus (Fraser 2003: 34).
Other variations include Kipfer (2002), which combines undiscriminated
synonyms with a reverse dictionary, to be briefly discussed below.
Some of the works referred to belong to the dynamic tradition of the
English monolingual learners’ dictionaries. The onomasiological dictionarv tra¬
dition, formerly represented in the pedagogical field only by McArthur (1981),
not only spawned several new types of work (referred to above) but also resul-
ted in the fact that the leading English monolingual learners dictionaries on
CD-ROM (Oxford, Longman, Collins COBUILD, Cambridge, but not Macmillan )
® Hartmann and James (1998: 143, 69) enter the term thesaurus-cum-dictionary and its syn-
onym hybrid, where they recognize only one type of a thesaurus in combination with a gen¬
eral dictionary, viz. the one “which splits each page into a traditional dictionary section and
a thesaurus section from the corresponding part of the alphabet.
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PREDSTAVITVE,MNENJAIOCEN
PRESENTATIONS,OPI IONSA DR V EW
Dušan Gabrovšek
now offer also “semantic” access to vocabulary items that is not available in the
print versions. Thus the Longman (Summers ed. 2003) CD-ROM incorporates
not only the 2002 Activator™, but also another two “topical” features, viz. the
Word set button on the toolbar and the Subject search facility (ten basic
“themes,” each subdivided first into “headings” and each of these in turn into
“subject areas”). Two, the revised Cambridge (Gillard ed. 2003 / Walter ed.
2005) offers the “Smart Thesaurus” facility; what you get with each headword
is two features showing in two adjacent windows: Topicalized list of words fol-
lowed in the next window by the same list where each item appears complete
with the standard lexicographical treatment. Also, its Advanced Search facility
enables you to find, for example, 154 matches of AmE (“region”) terms in the
field of education (“topič”), or over 5000 AmE (“region”) terms. Three, the
2001 COBUILD on CD-ROM (Sinclair ed. 2001) - sold, unlike the others, as a
separate product - includes a small but useful alphabetical Collins Thesaurus.
However, the CD-ROM accompanying 2003 COBUILD Dictionary (Sinclair ed.
2003)7 has dropped this feature. Four, the Oxford Advanced (Wehmeier ed.
2005) incorporates also Oxford Learners Wordfinder (Trappes Lomax 1997).
Next, there are various “specialized thesauruses”, say the 600-page histori-
cal thesaurus of “love, sex, and marriage” (Coleman 1999), testifying to the
complexity of human closest social and emotional relationships. It is arranged
by meaning, the terms being listed chronologically within semantic fields, with
dates of usage, notes on individual terms, and background information about
changes in social conditions, religious beliefs, and medical advancements. Such
works are clearly beyond the scope of this survey.
There are also in existence wordbooks that combine thesaural information
with various other types of lexical data; e.g. Berold (1987) is a thematic vocabu-
lary book including collocational information and warnings about false friends.
Thanks to the advent of computerization, such combined works are likely
to proliferate in the years to come, particularly Online. Tulloch (ed. 1995), for
example, is a 1900-page print dictionary and thesaurus in fully integrated text
(300,000 synonyms and over 190,000 dictionary definitions) created by
electronically splicing and trimming (McArthur with Becker and Blaney 1999:
260) two wordbooks: Concise Oxford Dictionary (8th edition [Allen ed. 1990])
and Oxford Thesaurus (Urdang 1991), with 23 encyclopedic appendices throvvn
in for good measure, the synonyms given being keyed to each meaning they are
related to. However, the optimum format and size of the alphabetical and the
semantic modes combined may not be this easy to achieve. Integrated dic-
7 Note that overall, the 4th edition of the COBUILD underwent very little revision compared
vvith the 3 rd one.
152 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 144-167
.........[n a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical VVordbooks
tionary and thesaurus tools demonstrating the flexibility of online sources are
now available on the Web (cf. especially http://www.wordsmyth.net/ and
http://www. yourdictionary.com/), some offering additional reference tools (e.g.
http://www. thefreedictionary.com/).
Importantly (Rundell and Ham 1994: 175), there is a distinction between
the semantic-field and the concept-based approaches. The former approach (e.g.
McArthur 1981) to e.g. CRIME includes specific types of crime, such as mur-
der or shoplifting. By contrast, the concept-based approach (e.g. Summers ed.
1993/2002) covers these notions in the areas where they belong CONCEPTU-
ALLY.: murder at KILL (which is where a študent wishing to encode this notion
would naturally look), and shoplift at STEAL.
Some authors argue for the basic pair of the semantic-field (or associative)
approach vs. the synonym-based approach, which roughly corresponds to the
distinction between the conceptual thesaurus and the alphabetical thesaurus
(Landau (2001: 138-41). The former’s entry structure is much broader and
semantically diverse, while the latter’s is narrower and tighter. This is quite log-
ical, given that a broad concept preceded and followed by its related concepts
can be handled in a semantically much more detailed and diverse manner; strict
alphabetization, by contrast, calls for a semantically more focused approach, as
the A-Z headwords following each other will often be totally unrelated in mean-
ing, each representing a veritable “world of its own.”
There is little empirical evidence about how such works are used in practi-
cal language work. Lewis (1997: 209) e.g. believes that it is "most helpful if
users simply browse under particular headings so that half-remembered lexis is
re-activated for them.”
MORE RELATED VVORDBOOKS
There are on the English-language-reference market also a number of re¬
lated topical tools such as pictorial dictionaries and “reverse’ dictionariesHI. The
former include Clark and Mohan (eds. 1995), an all-English version of the Du-
den line of pictorial dictionaries, where an alphabetical index - two indexes in
bilingual versions - is linked to numeric references identifying the given page
and the individual drawing corresponding to each term. Its competitors include
Corbeil and Manser (1988), the comprehensive, 35,000-item Corbeil and
Archambault (eds. 2002), and several pictorial dictionaries combining pho-
tographs and drawings with textual material, such as the specialized Bragonier
and Fisher (eds. 1984), or the more general, “twice topical - on two levels - Evans
et al. (eds. 1998), often in a format that is more modern than that of the Duden.
Letnik 40, št, 1 -2, leto 2006: str. 144-167 • MOSTOVI 153
PREDSTAVITVE,MNENJAIOCEN
PRESENTATIONS.OPI IONA DR VIEW
Dušan Gabrovšek
The reverse-dictionary category, or the word-finding dictionaries cate-
gory, includes Bernstein (1988), Kahn (ed. 1989), and Edmonds (ed. 2002),
Kahn (ed. 1989) combining elements of the pictorial dictionary and thematiza-
tion in general (e.g. list of Indian terms, picture of insect, picture of leaf shapes,
table of terms pertaining to laboratory equipment, where thematization and
alphabetization often interact) - plus a 10,000-entry A-Z dictionary of “tricky
or reasonably difficult terms” (p. 577) - with the “reverse” dictionary proper.
Edmonds (ed. 2002), designed to help you find words you know but cannot
bring to mind, contains 31,000 entry-words grouped under a wide range of sub-
ject areas and key words/concepts. Another hybrid is the 700-page Kipfer
(2002); combining features of a dictionary of undiscriminated synonyms with
those of the reverse dictionary, it was designed for users who know the elusive
word they want to say but just cannot think of, but can describe what they are
thinking. It incorporates thesaurus-type synonym entries (e.g. abound: crawl,
flourish, overflow, swarm, teem\ above ali; chiefly, especially, indeed, mostly, prima-
rily) as well as reverse-dictionary entries organized under various “cue” or “clue”
words (=those you know) that lead you to the “target” words (=those you need),
e.g. accuse and charge with crime; indict, crime, to accuse formally of: charge, in-
dict, charge with an offense: indict, accent on last syllable, word with: oxytone,
plus dozens of topical lists, charts, and tables, say the list of acids, clothing
types, and tools. A more specialized topical vrordbook lists thousands of ad-
jectives and adverbs divided into 572 thematic categories (Kipfer 2003); you
get an array of word choices used to describe someone/something. Another
specialized work, Kipfer (2001), has been designed for people who need a syn-
onym not for single words but for phrases such as flower arrangement, sports
arena, or crowning achievement. Its 10,000 alphabetized multi-word entries lead
the user to synonyms of phrases. While showing ingenuity, such works contain
a highly subjective selection of items and are thus of limited value. They are en-
tertaining and interesting to browse, chiefly designed as resources for writers
and word lovers; much of what they list belongs to the arcane vocabulary that
many users may be better off avoiding.
There is also the “world’s only full-language reverse-dictionary” that pro-
mises to take you from a mere idea to the precise word, Elenry G. Burger’s
Wordtree (1984 and later revisions), a somevvhat controversial though highly
original but also expensive and widely publicized and revievved American work
(cf. Burger 1988 and Riggs 1989) that readers of this survey are urged to look
at for themselves (http://www.wordtree.com).
Other related topical/thematic tools include either topical wordbooks
such as Glazier (1992) and McCutcheon (1992/2003), or word-finders in a
specialized sense of the term (e.g. Welsh 1989, Grambs 1993, Sisson 1994), the
154 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 144-167
.... In a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical VVordbooks
latter chiefly leading the user to a highly personal - and thus arbitrary - selec-
tion of unusual, specialized, foreign (sometimes verging on the bizarre) words
rather than to lists of related words. The bulky Glazier (1992) arranges - and
defines - its 75,000 entries “in a logical structure” (inside front flap) in some
800 divisions organized in 7 major sections (Nature, Science and Technology,
Domestic Life, Institutions, Arts and Leisure, Language, The Human Condi-
tion), with a full A-Z index. McCutcheon (1995/2003) combines a concise A-Z
thesaurus with a “word-find reverse dictionary,” adding elements of a vocabulary
builder. Some works employing both alphabetization and thematization are diffi-
cult to classify; for instance, a German Lernworterbuch in Sachgruppen (Poll-
mann-Laverentz and Pollmann 1982) is organized in 201 topicalized lists, each
listing non-alphabetized English-language items that are followed by two co-
lumns: Their equivalent(s) in German and typical English collocations where
they exist, with an A-Z index of English words (pp. 249-84). Also, Basescu
(1976), a tiny paperback “designed to increase your speech color and fluency”
(p. 1), is divided into five sections grouping related words, “each concerned with
one area of thought” (back cover), and each with further subdivisions. The front
matter contains the Scan Key (the contents), and there is an A-Z index (pp.
95-132), preceded by an appendbc of foreign terms (pp. 86-94). Each entry is
briefly defined only in its relation to the group in which it occurs.
Some of the sources are only available in print form, while others exist in
CD-ROM versions (as well), and some are available online (notably Jošt ed.
1995 and the Merriam-Webster’s Collegiate Thesaurus [cf. footnote 5], both free
of charge, unlike Rogets New Millennium™ Thesaurus [Kipfer ed. 2005]). There
is also the original WordNet®, an online-only lexical reference system inspired
by psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. Some 140,000 English
nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each re-
presenting one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym
sets. Finally, another two online works of interest to translators are the Think-
map Visual Thesaurus, and the OneLook Reverse Dictionary.
THEMATIZATION GALORE
Thematization of any conceivable type - but usually combined with alpha¬
betization - in reference works is quite common, typically in the form of a the-
matic index following the main A-Z section, say in proverb dictionaries (e.g.
Fergusson 1983), in slang dictionaries (e.g. Spears 1998, Dickson 1998)I 5 1, in
pictorial dictionaries (Corbeil and Manser eds. 1988), and in dictionaries of
euphemisms (Bertram 1998). But even these thematic indexes are commonly
Letnik 40, št. 1-2, leto 2006: str. 144-167 • MOSTOVI 155
PREDSTAVITVE,MNENJAIOCEN
PRESENTATIONS,OPI IONSA DR VIEW
Dušan Gabrovšek
organized alphabetically, in terms of both topical categories and the items listed
within each category. Second, alphabetization is amply present in the thematic
organization of the main body of many reference books follovved by an A-Z in-
dex, including the famous Guinness Book of World Records (e.g. Matthews ed.
1996), slang dictionaries (e.g. Ayto 1998), and “factfinders” (e.g. Crystal ed.
2003) that are organized in a dozen or so broad areas of knowledge, each of
which is then broken down into subsections. 8 Both of these “list-of-contents-
type” sections usually form part of the front matter. The extremely varied main
part of works such as factfinders is commonly followed by a detailed A-Z in-
dex. The back-matter index can be left out (e.g. in Franck 1990), the idea being
that the twin front-matter lists will be enough for most reference purposes. Even
such encyclopedic (in contrast to lexical) works as a dictionary of inventions
(Messadie 1991) can display thematic arrangement; in such sources, the typical
pattern of arrangement is twofold:
- one, topical chapters (e.g. agriculture and food; chemistry and physics; com-
munication, culture and the media; daily life, etc.) given in A-Z fashion, each
chapter consisting of a number of - again alphabetized - encyclopedic-type
entries (e.g. agriculture and food: biological battle against insects; canned
food; cereal crops; Chemical pesticides; fertilizer; harvester; incubators; irriga-
tion; livestock rearing, etc.),
- two, an alphabetical index of headwords and other entries.
So, in such cases a topical work makes use of alphabetization on three levels.
Another common pattern is alphabetized entries followed by a back-matter
index ordered by field and, within each field, again alphabetically, the fields
themselves being typically, if somevvhat unexpectedly or even illogically, listed
yet again alphabetically. An A-Z ofModem America (Duchak 1999), for in¬
stance, has sizable Indexes (pp. 371-405) divided into clothing, customs and
traditions, daily life, economy, education, environment, foreign policy, health,
history, housing and architecture, immigration, language, etc. A reference work
on Britain (Room 1990) follows a similar arrangement: A back-matter index
(pp. 431-69) containing categories such as animal world, charities, clothing,
daily life, education, food and drink, history, language, law, life and society,
London (over 130 entries!), and media. In any čase, there must be thousands
8 This organization makes such works partly different from the alphabetized variety: Chalker
(1999: 243) notes that a topical slang dictionary’s (Ayto 1998) format “is unquestionably use-
ful if you want to learn as many slang synonyms as possible for a particular word or phrase
or to explore the language of a particular area of meaning,” or to “explore a concept,” while
an alphabetized competitor is a better choice if you are interested in the range of meanings
belonging to a word or phrase” - which is the very essence of monolingual dictionaries.
156 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 144-167
In a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical Wordbooks
of situations where the non-alphabetical organization of a limited lexical inven-
tory makes perfect sense, whether or not for translation purposes: It certainly
makes sense, for example, to provide, s.v. games, a list comprising not only
games named but also e.g. “plače,” “equipment,” “person in charge,” and “scor-
ing,” (say basketball - court - bali - referee - polni). Sometimes, such key items -
highlighted - are given in context, as in Bragonier and Fisher (eds. 1984). In
Evans et al. (eds. 1998), most double-page spreads combine pictorial material
with mini-essays on the topič in question (e.g. Jurassic period, p. 70; insects,
p. 168; digestive system, p. 248; train equipment, p. 330; fresco, p. 434; guitars,
p. 512; ice hockey, p. 550; CD-ROM, p. 584).
A special type of “mini” thematization that is useful for logical reasons can
be found e.g. in the pocket-size DeVinne (ed. 1990), a dictionary of discriminated
synonyms with several appendices including “collateral adjectives” (pp. 258-71),
i.e. adjectives that correspond to certain nouns in meaning but not in form, such
as cattle - bovine, back - dorsal, year - annual, son - filial, chance - fortuitous, not
to mention the innocent-looking leaf and its adjectival monsters foliaceous, foliar,
foliate, foliose, frondescent, and frondose. These lists are given alphabetically by
noun in topical sections (e.g. zoology, time, family, general). Such adjectives can
be further broken down: Schur (1987; 9-13) restricts them by providing a listing,
in facing columns, of those “collateral adjectives” ending solely in -ine that desig-
nate zoological or entomological families (e.g. feline - cats, ovine - sheep, ursine -
bears, not to mention rupicaprine - chamoix and tolvpeutine - armadillos). While
such items do not seem likely candidates for core vocabulary lists, they do group
semantically related words that get listed far apart from each other through the
vagaries of alphabetization.
As Augarde (2000: 136) observes, practical problems associated with thema-
tic lexicons are considerable: Words related in sense are not necessarily easy to
group together. Second, alphabetical order is the norm because it is, for most pur¬
poses, the most user-friendly arrangement. These may vvell be two powerful rea¬
sons why thematization as an organizing principle is (stili) regarded as being infe-
rior to the “ordered” alphabetization, though the underlying organization of the
mental lexicon is ali semantic and not one bit alphabetical. Small wonder, then,
that (Jackson and Ze Amvela 2000; 165) there is no thematically arranged general
dictionarv, although thematic lexicography has a long tradition, and although
“many lexicographers stili find the thematic arrangement a useful and revealing
way of arranging words” (e.g. Godman and Payne 1979, McArthur 1981).
Although thematic lexicography had existed long before Rogetb'L Roget s
Thesaurus (1852) was the first full-fledged conceptually arranged thesaurus.
It tried to arrange ali the words of English in a hierarchical structure (Miller
1991: 159). Its basic structure grouping items according to logical connection,
Letnik 40, št. 1-2, leto 2006: str. 144-167 • MOSTOVI
lil
Z
IU
oo
z
<
->z
zs
157
PREDSTAVITVE,
PRESENTATIONS,OPI IONSA DR V EW Dušan Gabrovšek
association, and semantic likeness has remained unchanged . 9 It was followed
more than half a century later by the alphabetical variety, identified as “Roget’s
Thesaurus in dictionary form,” a semantically tighter wordbook often restricted
to the provision of near-synonyms and sometimes antonyms, today the domi¬
nant variety thanks to the overall simplicity and ease of access associated with
alphabetical ordering universally known in one and the same form, as con-
trasted with the inherently idiosyncratic topical arrangement.
While Roget expected users of his book to master his system of categories
and thus to begin their word searches with it - i.e. conceptually - rather than
with the alphabetical index, most people using Roget’s thesaurus to find a par-
ticular word today typically first consult the index for some related but more
general word. There they are directed to the appropriate categories of seman-
tically related words.
CONCEPTUAL VS. ALPHABETICAL: THE IMPLICATIONS
As to their entry arrangement, thesauruses are either alphabetical or con-
ceptual. The alphabetical variety, very popular precisely because of its straight-
forward dictionary arrangement, is associated with more selectivity in the num-
ber of entries (rare words, names, and types of things are generally excluded)
and is thus more narrowly synonym-oriented, because each concept-entry,
being as it is listed alphabetically, represents a “semantic world of its own,”
being preceded and followed as a rule by semantically totally unrelated items
(e.g. the headwords mortify, mother, motif, motion).
By contrast, the conceptual variety, which seems to be losing ground be¬
cause the use of its printed versions calls for a two-stage lookup process that
takes up more time, is associated with extreme inclusiveness (rare, non-
-English, obsolete items and proper names are included without any apparent
principle of selection), and is more loosely semantic-field-oriented, or even
semantic-association-focused, because each concept-entry is preceded and fol-
lowed by semantically related concept-entries (e.g. the entries angle, curve,
straightness, circularity). This type of thesaurus is basically a non-alphabetized
sequence of categories of semantically related lexical items based on conceptual
proximity; its thematic classification is based either on a detailed categorization/
9 Despite the typical focus of many authors on the conceptual organization, Roget did what
most of his follovvers did as well: Use alphabetization in the back-matter index, and take into
account grammar, by organizing the entries by word classes (nouns followed by adjectives,
verbs, and so on, within any given entry-article).
158 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 144-167
In a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical VVordbooks
hierarchization indicative of more philosophical intellectual abstractions (no-
tably Roget’s 1852 Thesaurus), or on more pragmatic categories (e.g. Mc-
Arthur 1981). True, the electronic thesaurus obviates the need to first consult
an A-Z index, but then such use comes close to Consulting an A-Z thesaurus
in the first plače.
Alphabetical thesauruses tend to be more homogeneous than conceptual
thesauruses, though the basic problem common to any thesaurus - the number
of (near-)synonyms and other semantically related items listed after a headvvord
- remains: Where is “the cut-off point after which words become so remote
from the headvvord that their presence becomes misleading?” (McArthur with
Becker and Blaney 1999: 261)
In fact, BOTH alphabetical and conceptual thesauruses rely on alphabeti-
zation (Landau 2001: 139): In the alphabetical ones, the user is advised to go
either straight to the alphabetized entry, whereas in the conceptual ones, the
user is told to consult the A-Z index first, and then to move to the main part
and find there the item first looked up in the index, plus an array of lexical
items related to it semantically. Further, alphabetization and thematization com-
bined can be found in a variety of reference sources (e.g. Franck 1990,
Matthevvs ed. 1996, Spears et al. 1994, or Fergusson 1983), frequently with a
front-matter outline of contents, a thematic organization in the main body, and
a detailed A-Z index in the back. In such works, each thematic section is usal-
ly arranged alphabetically. Occasionally, thematic sections offer “additional”
help; Cambridge International Dictionary of Idioms (VValter and Pye eds. 1998),
for instance, offers back-matter Theme Panels (pp. 439-54) shovving topič
groups of “idioms grouped according to their meaning or function” (ibid., p.
vii) (e.g. anger, business, happiness and sadness, health, intelligence and stupi-
dity, money, remembering and forgetting, speaking and conversation, success
and failure). Indeed, quite a few dictionaries of idioms contain a thematic index,
such as COBUILD Idioms (Sinclair ed. 2002) with its 17-page thematic index
preceding the 70-page A-Z index, or the Cambridge American Idioms (Heacock
ed. 2003) with a 16-page back-matter thematic index. Of course, ali of these
works incorporate also sizable alphabetical indexes.
Finally, the two modes have existed side by side for centuries (McArthur
1995). For instance, a standard conceptually arranged thesaurus (Chapman ed.
1992) was published in an A-Z version too (Chapman ed. 1994).
So: It seems that the basic organizing principle of the monolingual general-
-language thesaurus is word association. But this means admitting to a vague,
subjective, and idiosyncratic type of organization. It is, then, easy to under-
stand why there have been so far very few successful attempts at organizing
lexical information non-alphabetically.
Ul
Z
Uloo
z
<
■>z
zss
Letnik 40, št. 1-2, leto 2006: str. 144-167 • MOSTOVI 159
PREDSTAVITVE
PRESENTATIONS,OPI IONSA DREVIEVV Dušan Gabrovšek
USING THE THESAURUS
Overall, the thesaurus is a tool for encoding rather than decoding, and
those who can put it to good use are mainly proficient (educated) native speak-
ers and advanced foreign learners/users. A thesaurus will be used when “our
principal problem is not to find the exact meaning of a word but to find the
exact word for a meaning which is floating, so to speak, in our heads,” that is,
when we are “stuck for the ‘right’ word” (Quirk and Stein 1990: 170). This
implies the semantically looser semantic-field type of thesaurus rather than the
synonym one. Partington (1998: 46-47) concludes that since being able to make
a choice among a selection of near-synonyms calls for acquiring as much
information as possible about the contexts in which each lexical item is used
(as each has its own pattern of behavior), the thesaurus - which simply gives
lists of synonyms - “is positively dangerous for the non-native speaker.” How-
ever, his reviewer (Horvath 2001) disagrees, calling for an empirical compari-
son of the naturalness of the writing of learners who used a thesaurus and those
who did not for a given writing task.
According to Hatch and Brown (1995: 383), there seems to be natural pro-
gression in the type of dictionaries that learners prefer: They go from picture
dictionaries to bilingual dictionaries, and then to monolingual dictionaries and
thesauruses. Thesauruses “are principally of use to those who wish to expand
their vocabulary and improve precision of expression, avoid repetitiveness in
spech or writing and the use of obscure or hackneyed words, choose the appro-
priate level of word for each occasion, or simply to identify a vaguely remembe-
red word or phrase ...” (Loughridge 1990: 105).
As to specific groups, writers are likely to consult thesauruses for stylistic
variation (synonyms); students will resort to them to, well, please their teach-
ers, but perhaps also to improve their writing (synonyms); translators use them
for various encoding tasks (not only synonyms). Advertisers seem to be mostly
in need of synonym-oriented works, word-game players preferring comprehen-
sive conceptually arranged tools.
Endnotes
1 1 1 Discussions of the subject refer to the “traditionally alphabetic” kind of vvordbook, in the
first plače the dictionary, and to what are variously known as “topical,” “thematic,” or
classified reference works; sometimes both are labeled dictionaries.
1 2 1 Hartmann and James (1998: 101-2) cite three typical examples of onomasiological dic¬
tionaries: thesaurus, synonym dictionary, and word-finding (or “reverse”) dictionary; such
works present words or phrases as expressions of semantically linked concepts, which may
be meanings, ideas, notions, word families and similar relationships that can be designated
160 MOSTOVI • Volume 40, No. 1-2, Year 2006: pp. 144-167
In a Phrase, the Non-Alphabetical VVordbooks
in different ways: by pictures, words, terms, definitions, synonyms or translation equiva-
lents. The important criterion is the direction from concept to word, rather than from
word to explanation. ... “Because of this conceptual, systematic or ideological approach,
thematic order is sometimes preferred to alphabetical order.”
Monolingual learners’ dictionaries now do include non-alphabetical information; thus the
Hornby dictionary (Wehmeier ed. 2005: 99, 159) provides a vocabulary-building note on
how to express the concepts of bad and very bad, and a note (action / part of body / you
are...) on actions expressing emotions, e.g. bite / lips / nervous.
In Ilson’s (1991: 294) words, “analogical” information (=information about the lexical field
of which a given lexical unit is a part) is given sparingly by English-language dictionaries
and thesauruses, but more extensively by French dictionaries. An English-language “alpha¬
betical and analogical” dictionary might at its entry for horse provide cross-references to
types of horse (mare, pony), its colors (bay, roan), its parts (hock, pastem), its gaits (trot,
canter), and other “horsy” words (saddle, jockey, gymkhana). Such items do get grouped in
conceptual thesauruses, whose basic organizing principle (=word association) often contri-
butes to an overall impression of a lack of systematicity.
The reason for quotes around the adjective reverse is that this is a popular sense; in stricter
linguistic usage, reverse dictionary (Hartmann and James 1998: 119, 9) is a scholarly
reference work characterized by “the back-to-front arrangement of items,” i.e. one that lists
words in reverse alphabetical order, that is, alphabetically by last-to-first rather than first-
-to-last letter order, so that words ending in a come first and those ending in z come last
(Crystal 1997: 414), e.g.:
redemption option
exemption adoption
resumption eruption
presumption corruption
consumption insertion
assumption assertion
There seems to be currently only one “reverse” dictionary freely available on the Web for
Online consultation, at http://www.onelook.com/reverse-dictionary.shtml.
While specialized language thesauruses are outside the scope of this paper, let us note that
there are several thesauruses of English slang in existence (Lewin and Lewin 1994, Green
ed. 1986/1999, Chapman ed. 1989), though their use must surely be severely restricted.
McArthur (1986b) identifies several varieties of thematic presentation, notably
- travelers’ phrase books, such as the topical Berlitz booklets
- pictorial wordbooks, such as the Duden Bildw6rterbiicher, with an alphabetic index at-
tached to thematically organized lists
- specialized vocabulary lists arranged in topics or classes in language textbooks, an an-
cient lexicographical (especially bilingual) sub-tradition
- individual innovative 20th-century works such as Bragonier and Fisher (eds. 1981) and
McArthur (1981), and
- elements within or behind alphabetical works which are either overtly or covertly the¬
matic (e.g. grouped appendices in standard works, or whole volumes of classified glossa-
ries such as Miller 1981).
Letnik 40, št. 1-2, leto 2006: str. 144-167 • MOSTOVI 161
PREDSTAVITVE,MNENJAIOCEN
Dušan Gabrovšek
<A
Ž
>uik
Q
Z
4
inzo
ž
Ko
mmz0
1z
Ulm
Ulc
Ol
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