Orð og tunga - 01.06.2001, Page 67

Jóhannes Sigtryggsson & Chris. Sanders: The Copenhagen Old Norse Word-list 57
6 Caution!
The word-list from the letter c (of which there are a small number of representatives
— all of foreign origin) to the end of the alphabet was completed in the allotted time.
In order to achieve this it was necessary to accept a considerable degree of discrepancy
between the word-list on the one hand and the finally edited dictionary on the other.
The level of differentiation is not the same. In the dictionary itself there are so-called
altemative forms printed in bold type alongside the main form of the headword.8 A
decision on whether or not to incorporate an altemative form in an article is the result
of detailed editorial assessment which could not be undertaken while producing the
word-list. The number of cross-references to be contained in the word-list was also de-
liberately kept to a minimum, again awaiting the editorial process, so a number of forms
or spellings that are potential altemative forms are not immediately searchable in the
word-list, but are “concealed” under a rubricized main form. A similarly hard-handed
treatment was necessary when dealing with compound words that contain productive
final elements (for example, since the form morginn was selected as the headword for
that particular entry, all compound words that have ‘morning’ as their final element are
registered under the spelling -morginn, even though spellings in -morgunn, -myrginn,
-merginn, and -murginn are recorded on the slips; similarly all compounds that end with
the element ‘sea’ are registered as -sjór, despite various occurrences in -sjár and -sær).
Some of these necessary crudities will be eliminated when the words are subsequently
edited for publication. In order to avoid unnecessary disappointments during a search,
future consultors of the word-list will do well to familiarize themselves with ONP’s
guidelines on normalisation, which will soon be made available on the dictionary’s
homepage.9 It is also useful to acquaint oneself with ONP’s practice with regard to car-
dinal forms; thus, forexample, adverbs which manifest themselves as declined forms of
an adjective are registered and cited as integrated elements in the article for the relevant
adjective (bráðan, bráðum and brátt under bráðr, etc.).
7 Statistical results for the entire alphabet
a) number of handwritten dictionary slips: 726.092
b) to this must be added ca. 6% to accommodate entries containing marginal material
for which there are no handwritten slips (containing for example onomastic,
poetic, and foreign vocabulary):
ca. 43.500
ca. 770.000
c) to this must be added ca. 17% increase due to supplementary excerpting:10
Result: approximate total number oftokens ca. 900.000
8See N0gle// Key, pp. 31-32.
9www.onp.hum.ku.dk
10During the production of ONP1: a-bam it was established that it was necessary to extract supplementary
citations from previously published dictionaries and glossaries.