Problems in Selection of Entries in the Serbian-Russian Dictionary

Abstract

The author of this paper participates in the creation of a large Serbian-Russian dictionary as the compiler of the left side of it. The paper was presented at the round table “Problems of Slavic Comparative Lexicology and Lexicography” held at the Faculty of Philology of the MGU on March 24 and regards some doubts and solutions related to the processing of Serbian zoonyms, phytonyms, outdated lexicon, culturally marked lexicon, homonyms, insufficiently frequent lexicon. It occurred that it is not possible to determine in advance which lexemes can and which cannot be part of a bilingual dictionary. Only principal determinations can be set in advance, and the decision about each individual lexeme, however, depends on 1) the scope of the bilingual dictionary; 2) the languages included in the bilingual dictionary; 3) the evaluation of the structure of dictionary users; 4) the guiding ideas of the lexicographer (what messages and values one wants to convey to the user of the dictionary).