Definición lexicográfica y orden de la información y de las palabras elcaso del euskera

Abstract

The aim of this paper is to show how every language is determined by its syntactic structure when arranging information and words in lexicographic definitions. In the first two sections we analyze the difficulties we find in Basque with hyperonymic definitions of nouns: the informative structure. This kind of definition imposes goes from the general-hyperonym-to the particula-specific characteristics; but this order contrasts with the expansion of nominal nucleus modifiers towards the left, often found in Basque. Bearing in mind that Basque history regarding monolingual lexicography is very recent, in the third section we discuss and evaluate the solution to the aforementioned problem that Ibon Sarasola provides in his Euskal Hiztegia (Basque Dictionary, 1996). Basically, the solution resorts to appositional structures that get us closer to an analytical and more communicative model of definition: this way, the informative nucleus-hyperonym-precedes the specifications-modifiers in apposition. Finally, we extract the following conclusions of general-lexicography-and individual nature-Basque lexicography: Every language is determined by its syntactic structure regarding the model of hyperonymic definition and, because of that, it must look for its own syntacticdiscursive strategies. In the Basque dictionary Euskal Hiztegia, Sarasola specifies some syntactic-discursive strategies that have been proven adequate for the definition, which converge nicely with written tradition: one of the keys for these strategies is a moderate use of appositional structures to add specifications to the informative nucleushyperonym. The conclusions we have arrived at are also valid for the terminographic definition written in Basque, which similarly cannot differ in excess from the paradigm hyperonym (informative nucleus) + specific characteristics.