Speaker
Description
POSTER
A system of lexicographic presentational devices for data on verbal aspect has been developed that is aimed at providing advanced foreign language learners of English, German or Italian with data for individual verbs and their different readings. It is part of a monolingual, production-oriented electronic dictionary, the Phrase-based Active Dictionary (DiMuccio-Failla, 2025; DiMuccio-Failla & Giacomini, 2022).
Verbal aspect is understood here as the way in which speakers structure events and situations in language with regard to their boundaries (Sasse, 2002, p. 201). It is a conceptual category that is language-specific (Dessì Schmid, 2014), which means that providing data on verbal aspect can be beneficial for foreign language learners. Verbal aspect is expressed by the verb and its combination with linguistic devices, e. g. adverbials and tense, and it is tied to individual verb readings: Every verb reading has its characteristic set of ‘aspectual properties’ from a semantic as well as a syntactic point of view. For analysis, aspectual properties can be subsumed under more general aspectual classes (i. a. Vendler, 1957; Mourelatos, 1978; Croft, 2012).
The suggested system of presentational devices for verbal aspect consists of: 1) a visual representation of the aspectual class and corresponding semantic properties of the verb reading, 2) combinatorial options (adverbials, verbs and tense), 3) usage notes with explanations on semantic and/or syntactic particularities and 4) aids for disambiguating similar verb readings. The devices provide a range of data for the targeted user group of advanced language learners and are placed in different parts of the dictionary’s article structure: The visual representations and combinatorial options are given alongside every verb reading. The usage notes are tied to the specific items the explanations refer to. The aids for disambiguating similar verb readings contain a link to their similar counterpart. Each type of device is associated with a symbol and the symbols are placed in the dictionary article as buttons to allow users to display the data on demand.
To illustrate the potential information gain for the target users, the presentational devices are demonstrated and related to usage situations from function theory (Tarp, 2008): text production, (the text production stage of) translation into the foreign language and the revision of existing texts. We describe how the presentational devices cater to user needs in these situations and how they integrate with other microstructural items. The individual devices cater to different usage- and function-related user needs depending on the usage situation and user needs of a usage situation are covered by different devices. We exemplify the devices as well as different access routes within the dictionary, including aspect-class-based access via the above-mentioned visualisations.
