A Comprehensive Comparison of Lexemes in the ... - SIL International

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Compiling comprehensive dictionaries also enables us to find secondary
meanings that may not be elicited with a wordlist based on an LWC, such as those
listed in Table 1.3 from various Tannese languages.
Table 1.3. Some Tanna lexemes with idiosyncratic secondary meanings.
Primary meaning
be heavy
death
heaviness
sit
smallness
split lengthwise
summit
Secondary meaning
be pregnant, be serious
sickness, trial
unity
mourn, be married
childhood
interpret
complete
In this study, when lexemes have multiple, related meanings, the various
meanings are separated by semicolons. The primary meaning is listed first and
additional meanings are listed following it. The meanings least directly related to
the primary meaning are listed last. This is illustrated in example (1):
(1) canoe; ship; village; generation
Here, ‘canoe’ is the primary meaning; ‘ship,’ ‘village,’ and ‘generation’ are
additional meanings. ‘Ship’ is the most closely related to ‘canoe’ and therefore
listed first, while ‘generation’ is the least directly related to ‘canoe’ and therefore
listed last.
1.3.1.2 Potential for errors in a Swadesh wordlist
Tryon (1976) published a comparison of nearly 300 lexemes spoken in 179
locations throughout Vanuatu, including 14 locations on Tanna. It was a seminal
work, showing not only lexical similarity of languages and dialects throughout
Vanuatu but also describing the phonology of each of these languages and
dialects. However, a survey of that sort—even one done by as apt a linguist as
Tryon—is likely to produce the following types of errors:
1) Synonym mismatch
The linguist tries to elicit a lexeme and informants in some languages give one
word while informants in related languages give a synonym rather than the
actual lexeme the linguist is looking for. Even though the corresponding
lexeme is also present in their languages, the linguist is not privy to that
information, leaving the linguist with the impression that the languages differ
on this lexical item.
2) Grammatical mismatch
The informant misunderstands the grammatical form of the word the linguist
is eliciting (perhaps because the linguist is working in an LWC), so the