Bendrinės lietuvių kalbos žodyno struktūra, tikslai ir perspektyvos
The structure, aims and future prospects of the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian

Summary/Abstract: The Centre of Lexicography at the Institute of the Lithuanian language is currently compiling the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian. It is a prescriptive general dictionary whose editors aim to register the correct usage of contemporary Lithuanian. An attempt has been taken to achieve a balance between formal and colloquial uses of words. The compilers have also seeked: 1) to apply a more systematic approach, and 2) to gradually modernize the process of compilationby implementing insights from modern lexicographic publications of other languages into the context of the Lithuanian lexicographic tradition.To achieve systematicity, the Dictionary of Standard Lithuanian is not only edited but also written by dealing with separate lexico-semantic or derivational word groups. A complete view of similar words allows to formulate definitions more accurately and, when necessary, to create defining patterns as well as distinguish the senses more precisely. Systematicity also makes the process of word selection easier. The compilers give preference to shorter dictionary entries hence verbal, adjectival, adverbial etc. derivatives of nouns are presented in separate entries rather than in one entry of the nominal headword. Compounds that are special terms are also presented as separate headwords. Every entry contains information about word class, sometimes gender and number of the headword, verbal and some other headwords may have information about their syntactic combinability which is also illustrated in the example sentences. All the words in the examples, not just the headwords, are stressed. The headword is reproduced in full form rather than partly replaced by the tilde symbol. The list of the headwords includes both common and proper names, among which the most popular Lithuanian and foreign placenames, religious names etc. can be found. The database of the Dictionary has already been completed. It contains the alphabetically listed entries. Individual entries in the database can be further edited and supplemented. The compilers hope that the database will be particularly useful for the preparation of later editions of the Dictionary.

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