Searching for the empirical base unit of a great academic explanatory dictionary: On the subjectivity and objectivity of lexicographic description

The article discusses the problem of the structure of the empirical base (corpus) for a great academic explanatory dictionary of the Russian language associated with the normative-historic type. According to the lexicographic tradition, this dictionary will represent the lexical and stylistic systems of the Russian literary language of various historical periods ("from Pushkin up to now") taken in their dynamic correlation. The dictionary's empirical base will provide the lexicographer with trustworthy text material balanced against the genre, stylistic, and chronological differentiation; it will also propose a corpus toolset for investigation and presentation of language norms typical of every snapshot in the history of language described in the dictionary. To reach this aim, the authors identify a number of units of the future dictionary corpus (text, context, citation, lexicographer's example) which differ in terms of the lexicographic categories of objectivity/subjectivity: to what extent do these units correspond with the real language use and to what extent do they serve as its interpretation by the writer or lexicographer? Thus, text appears the most objective unit of the dictionary corpus though it stays syncretic in its functional specifics as well as subjective due to the impact of its author. Text might be opposed by context - a fragment of text characterized by discursive consistency and homogeneity. In its turn, the subjectivity of the lexicographer determines such units of the dictionary corpus as citation and lexicographer's example. However, the article proves that for a normative-historic dictionary this sort of material can be quite helpful as it allows to study the normative language use typical for the periods of the Russian language history when the synchronous explanatory dictionaries were being prepared. The linguistic consciousness of the lexicographer of the past, who selected a citation or created an example for his dictionary, will guarantee that this exact usage used to be typical and normative. Finally, the authors come to a practical conclusion that the empirical base of the future great academic explanatory dictionary of the normative-historic type will consist of three interconnected corpora based on various units of language material. In spite of the difficulties in the creation of such corpora as well as their inevitable lacunarity, this kind of empirical base will certainly help to create a large-scale and authentic view of the normative language use referring to various periods in the history of the Russian literary language. Contribution of the authors: the authors contributed equally to this article. The authors declare no conflicts of interests.

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