František Čermák

Language Corpora: The Czech Case

Against background of the growing need of information, which for language used to be supplied in a rather limited way, the new solution found in language corpora and the way how this has been implemented is outlined and discussed. For the Czech language, this solution has materialized in the 100 million representative Czech National Corpus (CNC, 2000). In the following, a brief tour is offered through various stages of its build-up, characterizing both various corpora within CNC and giving some figures about proportions of various types of language represented. The last part of the contribution sets a minimal programme for further research and desiderata to be followed in general in this branch of important and international stream of modern science.

Notes on Compiling a Corpus- Based Dictionary

On the basis of sample analysis of a Czech adjective, a definition based on the data drawn from the Czech National Corpus (cf. Cermak and Schmiedtova 2003) is gradually compiled and finally offered, pointing at the drawbacks of definitions found in traditional dictionaries. Steps undertaken here are then generalized and used, in an ordered sequence (similar to a work-flow ordering), as topics, briefly discussed in the second part to which lexicographers of monolingual dictionaries should pay attention. These are supplemented by additional remarks and caveats useful in the compilation of a dictionary. Thus, a brief survey of some of the major steps of dictionary compilation is presented here, supplemented by the original Czech data, analyzed in their raw, though semiotically classified form. Keywords: Monolingual Dictionaries, Corpus Lexicography, Syntagmatics And Paradigmatics In Dictionaries, Dictionary Entry, Types Of Lemma, Pragmatics, Treatment Of Meaning, Polysemy, Czech

Information, Language, Corpus and Linguistics

At the turn of the century, linguistics is more and more dependent on corpora; at the same time it is evident that corpora become a primary source of information. Yet the original enthousiasm of corpus linguists has to be confromted with a number of new problems which have to be faced. Some aspects of corpora and language, applications and linguistics proper are discussed and a number of open questions is mentioned.