On all-embracing lexicographic presentation of the lexical core of the Russian language

The practice of teaching Russian language shows that the provision of studies with dictionariesthat were created specifically for this purpose is still insufficient. In order to fill this gap, the lexicographersof the Pushkin State Russian Language Institute are working on a dictionary project under theworking title The All-Embracing Explanatory Dictionary. The Lexical Core of the Russian Language.At the base of the project lie the principles of the theory of educational lexicography that is beingdeveloped by the lexicographers of the Pushkin Russian Language Institute. Due to its educationalorientation the described dictionary is anthropocentric by nature, which can be seen in the sole orientationof its content and structure towards the dictionary user. Since the content of the dictionary presupposesthe thorough characteristic of the lexical body being described, the dictionarys recipientsare thought to be not only the ones that are being taught (they require mostly sporadic reference materials),but also the ones that teach (the instructors, methodologists who need broad, well-explained andsystematically organized materials).The main tasks that are being accomplished by the Dictionary are: a) presentation of lexical unitsthat form the main lexical body (the core) of the modern Russian language, b) the most subtle descriptionof the semantic structure of these units, c) reflection of their orthoepic and grammatical properties,phraseological, linguo-cultural, linguo-areal, word-formative and etymological values, d) indepthdescription of the meaning of every lexical-semantic variant and extended presentation of itssyntactic and lexical combinability, e) location and presentation of the system connections of theheadword and its lexical-semantic variants.The solution to the aforementioned problems is based on the regulations of the dictionary lexicology,which call for a lexicography-oriented interpretation of different kinds of lexicological categoriesand other objects. In practice that leads to: a) equal description of the one-word and more-thanone-word head words, such as железная дорога, принять участие, etc.; b) interpretation of themeaning of the lexical-semantic variant as a whole information complex that includes informationabout the absolute (lexical meaning), relative (system characteristics) and combinatorial values of theword; c) differentiation between the simple, compound and combined units of the lexical system; d)usage of the concept of the systemic seam, which allows satisfactory interpretation in the dictionaryof various kinds of syncretic phenomena; e) differentiation between the proper (individual) and nonproper(group) qualities of language units that opens the possibility of considerable reduction of thesize of the dictionary articles without lessening their informational value and some others.Each of the non-referential dictionary entries can include up to 10 dictionary zones that containorthoepic, grammatical, stylistic, semantic, epidigmatic, derivational, phraseological, linguo-cultural,etymological, etc. characteristics of the headwords.

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