Fordelingsstruktur og kondensering. Grammatik i bilingvale ordbøger med dansk og tysk

Abstract

Among the editors of bilingual dictionaries with Danish and German from the 18th
century till today, there seems to be a general agreement as to what grammatical
information should be given about the entry words and their equivalents. There is,
however, no agreement as to the question where this information is to be given: either
in the dictionary articles themselves or in other parts of the dictionary. In this paper
the distribution structure in a number of bilingual Danish-German and GermanDanish
dictionaries is investegated, and additionally it is claimed that those dictionaries
which have a relatively simple distribution structure are also characterized by
a relatively low degree of textual condensation. This dictionary type is typical especially
for the 18th century where often very detailed grammatical information is
given in the dictionary article itself. On the contrary, especially the small dictionaries
from the 20th century are characterized by a very complex distribution structure combined
with a high degree of textual condensation, cf. entries like absehen <l 9alhb> vt
where the code refers to various paradigms in the outside matter. Along with t'1e most
recently published Danish-German Dictionary, however, less condensate.d and rather
simple distribution structures now seem to experience a renaissance. From the point
of view of the user, this is to be regarded as a welcome development.