Lexicographic Treatment of Kinship Terms in an English/Sepedi–Setswana–Sesotho Dictionary with an Amalgamated Lemmalist

Abstract

This article describes the lemmatisation and treatment of kinship terms in a proposed English–Sotho, Sotho–English dictionary with an amalgamated lemmalist. The first requirement is to build a list of kinship terminology for the Sotho languages. Secondly, it is necessary in terms of space restriction to determine the most frequently used forms to be lemmatised in such a dictionary. Thirdly, the macrostructure and microstructure of the dictionary should be planned in terms of an amalgamated approach. A short explanation of the amalgamated model will be presented and a schematic illustration of the paternal family tree structure in the Sotho languages is given in the appendix. Specific attention is given to the compilation of the amalgamated lemmalist focusing on absolute cognates and absolute cognates with a difference in form. Finally, where the reduction of huge quantities of terms, e.g. all derived forms of a specific term in all three Sotho languages are at stake, a lexicographic convention will be suggested to sensibly reduce the number of lemmas and to combat redundancy.