An electronic ideographic dictionary: theoretical and practical aspects (on the material of The Russian Thematic Dictionary)

The article considers the conception of The Russian Thematic Dictionary and ways to implement it using computer lexicography. A very productive idea of the dictionary as a language system model (Morkovkin 1970) underlies The Russian Thematic Dictionary according to which information on the systemic features of a unit is a springboard for its speech implementation. The first part of the article presents a number of theoretical provisions regarding lexis ideographic description. Minimal units of ideographic description, means of lexical system vectors representation (such as paradigmatic, syntagmatic and derivational), a need for definitions in a thematic dictionary are discussed in this part. The second part relates to The Russian Thematic Dictionary computer implementation techniques which are working on the implementation of the basic idea that lies in its foundation. These techniques are primarily a visualization of diverse linear and hierarchical connections between lexis units that always stay planar in a paper dictionary version. The volume in an electronic version is created in three ways: through a hyperlink system, a cluster presentation of thematic groups and a combined vision of objects belonging to different compositional levels. The second advantage of the dictionary computer implementation is the simplification of vocabulary interpretation achieved through a system of pop-up windows which include transcripts and commentaries. Besides, the computer version provides advanced search capabilities. At the moment the system of filters includes options such as grammatical features, stylistics, synonyms, antonyms, paronyms and taronyms, analogues, etymology, semantic compatibility and linguocultural material. The planned functionality of The Russian Thematic Dictionary also gives an opportunity of individual work with dictionary materials (adding materials to one's "briefcase", the possibility of their systematisation and downloading). Finally, the computer electronic version of The Russian Thematic Dictionary has a multimedia component that includes not only images but also audio and video recordings. Illustrative elements will not be used in all dictionary entries but primarily for words that are hypothetically poorly understood and have a pronounced empirical component of the meaning. Images, for example, are very useful when describing units of the "Precious, Semi-Precious and Ornamental Stones" thematic group (chrysoberyl, alexandrite, aquamarine, spinel, etc.), audio recordings when describing units of the "Animal Sounds" group (rumble, clink, tweet, tinker (make a sequence of ringing melodic sounds), etc.), video recordings when describing units of the "Animal Movement Methods" group (gait, trot, gallop, jog-trot, etc.). The computer implementation of The Russian Thematic Dictionary will become an original and multifunctional lexicographic work representing a multidimensional model of the Russian language lexical system.

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