Studien zur neuhochdeutschen Lexikographie (review)

Reviews159 Studien zur neuhochdeutschen Lexikographie, vol. V. (Germanistische Linguistik 3-6/84.) vol. VLl. (Germanistische Linguistik 84-86/1986.) vol. VI.2. (Germanistische Linguistik 87-90/1986.) Hildesheim, Zürich, New York: Georg Olms Verlag, 1984, 1986, 1988. xxii + 461 (V); xxxviii + 917 (VLl + 2) pp. DM 68.-, 59.80, 74.-. This is the sequel to the four preceding volumes, reviewed in Dictionaries 6 (1984): 268-75. These last three volumes (edited again by Professor H. E. Wiegand of Heidelberg) concentrate more strongly on the internal problems of mono- and bilingual dictionaries than did the four preceding volumes. Indeed, there are only three articles on more general topics. H. J. Störig, "Abgrenzung der Lexikographie" (6: 183-95): attention paid to words vs. attention paid to things is the fundamentum divisionis of linguistic and encyclopedic lexicography, the latter also including, à la McArthur, various books of reference. M. Ripfel and H. E. Wiegand, "Empirische Wörterbuchbenutzungsforschung : ein kritischer Bericht" (6: 491-520): a critical analysis of five publications that report and evaluate tests connected with the use of dictionaries by various users, concluding that this type of study should not be identical with the publisher's exploration of the market but should develop a theoretical foundation of its own, anchored in sociological approaches ; S. Schierholz, "Bedeutungswörterbücher als Grundlage empirischer Wortschatzuntersuchungen" (6: 463-78): quantitative studies of phenomena such as polysemy or the degree of abstraction that varies in substantives, based on countable indications supplied by general dictionaries. Topics pertaining to the monolingual dictionary center on problems of grammar and of semantic description. H. Bergenholtz , "Grammatik im Wörterbuch: Syntax" (5: 1-46): detailed criticism of the syntactic indications given in several contemporary German mono- and bilingual dictionaries. H. Bergenholtz and J. Mugdan, "Grammatik im Wörterbuch: von ja bis Jux" (5: 47-102): the authors, who plan a German dictionary that will concentrate on grammar, discuss some aspects of this plan and give samples of future entries, the longest being that ofja 'yes', six and one half pages; the article elicited 1 60Reviews some critical remarks by B. Carstensen, "Von ja bis Jux ohne Tollerei." The same authors also offer a detailed criticism of a German dictionary in another article: H. Bergenholtz and J. Mugdan, "Der neue Super-Duden; die authentische Darstellung des deutschen Wortschatzes?" (6: 1-149). B. Horlitz, "Zur lexikographischen Darstellung der Verbalsubstantive auf -ung"" (6: 479-90): verbal nouns derived with -ung belong to different semantic types; how they are and how they should be dealt with in dictionaries. W. Müller, "Zur Praxis der Bedeutungserklärung (BE) in (einsprachigen) deutschen Wörterbüchern und die semantische Umkehrprobe" (5: 359461 ): a detailed analysis of mistaken definitions; to prevent such errors, the lexicographer should apply the semantic conversion test, which consists in inserting the definiens into the context of the definiendum and then the definiendum into the context of the definiens. H. Woetzel, "Uneigentliche Bedeutung und Wörterbücher oder Die Markierung Ü/FIG als Stein des Anstoßes für die Lexikographie (6: 391-461): since metaphoricity in the broadest understanding of the term has many dimensions and degrees, its representation in dictionaries should also be variable. The reader may compare Osselton. F. Hermanns, "Appellfunktion und Wörterbuch; ein lexikographischer Versuch" (6: 151-82): a discussion of the ways by which to represent in dictionaries words endowed with non-denotative functions. Another type of information given by German monolingual dictionaries is discussed by K. Pawlowski, "Die phonetischen Angaben in einsprachigen Wörterbüchern der deutschen Gegenwartssprache" (6: 279326 ): detailed criticism of the way pronunciation of foreign words, mostly English, is indicated in four dictionaries. Problems of monolingual lexicography are also discussed in articles that do not necessarily relate to the general-purpose dictionary. P. Kühn, "Primär- und sekundärsprachliche Grundwortschatzlexikographie: Probleme, Ergebnisse, Perspektiven " (5: 239-306): criticism of the attempts to establish the "basic vocabulary" merely by statistics and by criteria based on the frequency of occurrence. H. Schumacher, "Stand und Aufgaben der germanistischen Valenzlexikographie" (6: 32789 ): a critical survey of the achievements in the study of German valences, and a discussion of problems and desiderata . W. Mieder, "Geschichte und Probleme der neuhochdeutschen Sprichwörterlexikographie...