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Jim ryumaou01 scripsit:
<<Okay, so there hasn't been too much activity here and I figured it
was as good a place as any to ask this question...>>
Good questions may be asked at any activity ;))
<<I'm not too familiar with Arabic, but I've read a few short pages
about an Arabic-esque morphology for conlangs. So, if one were to do
this, how would you list the words? For instance, if the word "base"
was ntk which produced several other words, including; natak, netek,
nitik, neotek, niatok, etc., would the word base be listed as the
dicitonary entry, with all the supporting variations? Or, would each
variation be listed separately?>>
It more depends on lexicographic traditions rather than on the features of the
language itself. In Hebrew, I saw three types of dictionaries:
- Biblical Hebrew lexicon (1879) is arranged purely by "base" (more correctly
called "root"); in cases of some nouns it is rather speculative;
- Shapiro's Hebrew-Russian dictionary (1963) lists verbs by roots (with
different verb "stems" like katav, nikhtav, hikhtiv, hitkatev given in one
entry), and the other stuff alphabethicly;
- newer Israeli dictionaries are arranged purely alphabethicly [that makes
letter H take 1/4 of the dic ;)) ]
For your own designing purposes I'd rather suggest root arrangement (if
derivation is rather transparent), giving references to the root in more obscure
cases, e.g.:
KTB:
_katav_ 'to write'
_nikhtav_ 'to be written'
_hikhtiv_ 'to dictate'
_mikhtav_ 'letter' {all derivatives are quite regular}
YD3:
_yada_ 'to know'
_hodia_ 'to inform'
_meida_ 'infomation' {two last words may be also listed separately:
they aren't so easily figured out}:
HWDY3 [hodia] see YD3
MYD3 [meida] see YD3
<<Or, are people used to looking up
the base verb/noun to find all the variations under it?>>
It was like this earlier, but now this ability is often lost. Thus, if you want
to make your dictionary public, you'd better arrange it alphabeticly.
~~~~~~Yitzik~~~~~~