Abstract
In the previous chapters I have discussed ways to gather data about phonology, morphology, and grammar. In this chapter, I describe the documentation of the lexicon of a language. Lexical documentation can be something done in conjunction with other work on the language; however, dictionary making is also an extensive enterprise in its own right. You could just wait for lexical items to appear in the course of your other work (e.g. in text collection); however, the returns on this method diminish rapidly as you gain familiarity with the language (that is, the number of new words in texts drops off rapidly).
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8.5 Further reading
Kinship: Holy (1996), McKinney (2000: ch 14).
Lexicography: Mosel (2004), Nichols and Sprouse (2003).
(Lexical) semantics and fieldwork: Evans and Sasse (2005), Hellwig (2006), Hellwig (2010), Matthewson (2004), Thieberger (2011: Part III).
Other types of documentation: Barwick (2005) Austin (2005), Toelken (1996), Barz and Cooley (1997), Post (2004).
Ethnobotany: Cotton (1996), Berlin (1992).
Indigenous knowledge systems: Bicker et al. (2004), Sillitoe et al. (2005).
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© 2015 Claire Bowern
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Bowern, C. (2015). Lexical and Semantic Data. In: Linguistic Fieldwork. Palgrave Macmillan, London. https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137340801_8
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1057/9781137340801_8
Publisher Name: Palgrave Macmillan, London
Print ISBN: 978-1-137-34079-5
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