A view of Serbian authored lexicography

Abstract

Serbian authored lexicography today slightly lags behind the achievements typical of foreign, primarily Russian linguistic scene. The existing dictionaries encompass the poetical works of Petar II Petrovic Njegos (Dictionary of the Language of Petar II Petrovic Njegos), poetry of Milan Rakic (Dictionary of the Poetry of Milan Rakic) and the opus of stories of Laza K. Lazarevic (Dictionary of Stories of Laza Lazarevic). Dictionaries to do with the language of these men of letters are of descriptive kind, and they heavily rely on the lexicographic achievements related to the Belgrade school of lexicography. The dictionaries had an aim to present not only the entire lexicon, individual lexical profile of the said authors, but also their linguistic (lexical) idiosyncrasy. Lexicon of Adjectives in the Serbian Prose of the Twentieth Century does not fit into the mainstream of Serbian authored lexicography. In terms of expertise, the Lexicon showed certain shortcomings, but it is undeniably original and has practical relevance for studying the prose writers of the 20th century. Since the advent of new forms of presenting the lexis of particular authors (concordance and word frequency dictionaries), the field of Serbian authored lexicography has been greatly expanding.