Revising Matumo's "Setswana–English–Setswana dictionary"

Abstract

The aim of this article is to design a revision strategy for the Setswana to English side of the Setswana–English–Setswana Dictionary compiled by Z.I. Matumo in 1993. An existing general organic Setswana corpus as well as a dedicated corpus compiled for the purposes of the revision will be used as a basis for macro- and microstructural aspects of the proposed revision. Lemma candidate lists for inclusion in and omission from the existing dictionary will be generated from these corpora, existing articles will be critically analysed and models for revised/updated articles will be presented. Key components of the revision strategy include the design and use of a multidimensional Ruler and Block System for the measurement and balancing of alphabetical stretches for the revised dictionary in terms of time, average length of articles and number of pages per alphabetical category. It is not possible to present all aspects of the revision within the scope of a journal article but the most prominent ones as well as a selection of typical issues will be dealt with.

Keywords: lexicography, lemmatisation, revision, information retrieval, macrostructure, microstructure, ruler, block system, dictionary, african languages, setswana (tswana)