Málfræði í orðabókum

Abstract

The topic of the paper is the scope and presentation of grammatical information in Icelandic dictionaries. Grammar (or linguistics) is the foundation on which dictionaries rest, but there is nevertheless a fundamental difference between a grammar and any kind of dictionary. The topic of a grammatical description is the structure of the language in question, focusing on the whole, i.e. top-down. The structure of a dictionary is based on individual entries, and the focus is bottom-up. Taking information on inflectional morphology and the transitivity and case assignment of verbs as examples, three different methods of division of labour between grammar and dictionary are discussed. The conclusion is that the dictionary needs to provide its own standalone description of grammatical features, with sufficient detail to provide for the user’s needs, because of the difference in focus between a dictionary and a grammar.