Juan Gabriel Vázquez González

University of Málaga

ASSESSING THE IMPACT OF THE WORD FREQUENCY APPROACH ON OLD ENGLISH DICTIONARIES

In this paper, I will try to demonstrate how the word frequency criterion has been a decisive influence within 20th century Old English lexicography. Among contemporary Anglo-Saxon lexicographica, the two existing major projects may be divided according to the presence/absence of the aforesaid feature. On the one hand, the onomosasiologically oriented A Thesaurus of Old English (Roberts et al., 1995) does not seem to take the former into account. On the other, and since the edition of the Anglo-Saxon Poetical Records (Krapp & Dobbie, 1951-53) and concordances such as Bessinger and Smith (1969a & 1969b), this methodological procedure seems to have become one of the overriding principles in the editing of the Dictionary of Old English (Amos & Healey, 1986). A sound criticism of this distributional (Coseriu, 1981) application will thus set up the basis for determining its place in the elaboration of a new Old English Dictionary.

WORKS CITED:

AMOS, A.C. & HEALEY, A.P. 1986. Dictionary of Old English. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. (Continuing microfiche publication).

BESSINGER, J.B., & SMITH, P.H. 1969a. A Concordance to the Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

BESSINGER, J.B., & SMITH, P.H. 1969b. A Concordance to "Beowulf". Toronto: University of Toronto Press.

COSERIU, E. 1981. Lecciones de Lingüística General. Madrid: Gredos.

KRAPP, G.P.& DOBBIE, E.V.K. 1931-53. The Anglo-Saxon Poetic Records. New York: Doubleday.

ROBERTS, J., CHRISTIAN, K. & GRUNDY, L. 1995. A Thesaurus of Old English. Centre for Late Antique and Medieval Studies. King's College London: London.