8.0. Typological summary

The eighty years from the first printed edition of the Catholicon to the appearance of the Dictionaire Francoislatin is a brief period in the history of Western lexicography, but in that short space of time fundamental changes occurred in both the form and the content of dictionaries. We examine some of those changes in this chapter.

8.1. Consultability

The degree of consultability varies widely among early printed dictionaries, just as it does among manuscript ones. Much of the variation is related to progress in the new technology of printing, which we discuss in 8.1.2. In 8.1.1. we look at certain aspects of the nomenclature, in much the same way as we discussed pre-print lexica in 3.1.1.

8.1.1. Classes represented in the macrostructure

8.1.1.1. Grammatical words

Looking first at Latin monolingual dictionaries, we observe that most of the common prepositions and conjunctions are included in the Vocabularius breviloquus, in the section which Reuchlin calls Indeclinabilia. Pronouns are included under Nomina. Conjunctions, prepositions and pronouns are well-represented in Calepino's Dictionarium, where each part of speech is identified and then illustrated by several examples of the use of the word.

The first of the bilingual dictionaries, the Catholicon abbreviatum, is the printed version of Aalma, and grammatical words are present in its nomenclature in the same proportion as in the manuscripts (see 3.1.1.1.); that is, most prepositions are included, fewer conjunctions, and still fewer pronouns. The Vocabularius familiaris et compendiosus contains all of the common prepositions and conjunctions, and most of the pronouns, in just the same way as its close relative, the Dictionarius of Firmin Le Ver.

The articles containing grammatical words in Vocabularius nebrissensis are similar to those in CA: identification of the part of speech in Latin or French, followed by a short French definition:

Identification of parts of speech is still inconsistent throughout our corpus. For example, An, which is called a conjunction in the manuscript dictionaries in which it occurs, is identified in VN/EV as adverbe interrogatif. Also in Estienne's Dictionarium Latino-gallicum the entry for An begins: adverbium est interrogativum.

All common grammatical words are found in Estienne's Thesaurus and DLG. The part of speech is identified, followed by examples, some of them with French translations. The examples are set one under the other, rather than one after the other as in Calepino.

Since the DFL of 1539 does not contain grammatical and similar information, grammatical words are not identified. Prepositions include: Du, En, Pour, etc. and conjunctions include: Et, Car, Mais, and so on. Definite articles do not appear in the nomenclature of the DFL although they are included in some entries, for example, L'esté, Le siege de l'homme. Brandon (1904: 67) explains that the article is not prefixed to the noun to identify the gender, but rather because these nouns were most commonly encountered with one article or another. The indefinite article, Ung, on the other hand, does have entry status.

A large number of pronouns occur as entries in DFL 1539, including: Ce, Ceci, Celuy, Ceste, Cestuy, Dont, Je, Luy, Mien, Mon, Moy, Nostre, Nous, Que, Quel, Quelque, Sien, Soy, Toy, Toymesme, Vostre, Vous, etc.

8.1.1.2. Affixes

The Thesaurus and DLG contain the six prefixes which in compositione solum reperiuntur (DLG), that is, am, con, di, dis, re and se, as well as the enclitic suffixes met, ne, ve. Each is followed by examples of use, supported by citations.

In both the Latin and the Latin-French dictionaries in our corpus, free-standing Latin prepositions such as ante, circum and extra, are used in composition as prefixes:

8.1.1.3. Compounds

Many compounds have entry status in alphabetical order in the CA and the VN/EV, but they are rarely identified as such:

In the VFC, compounds are often identified by the connectors componitur and dictio composita: Compounds are equally numerous in Calepino, but are seldom identified. An exception is: Compounds often occur in the microstructure of all of the dictionaries, both with and without identification: The use of connectors such as componitur was declining with Calepino, and virtually disappeared with Robert Estienne. Although Estienne's dictionaries in our corpus contain a large quantity of compounds both as entries and as sub-entries, their articles (and micro-articles) do not include connectors. For example: In the case of the last example, we can be sure that the compound does occur in the nomenclature.

8.1.1.4. Derivatives

Derivatives in the alphabetical dictionaries, the CA, VFC, VN/EV and Calepino, usually have separate entry status although, as we have seen, traces of earlier family relationships often persist in the ordering. Occasionally in the CA and VN/EV, and more frequently in VFC, derivatives occur within articles as sub-lemmata, and are commonly introduced by inde or unde.

Connectors used to express derivation are much the same as those found in manuscript dictionaries: dicitur, descendit, fit, ab, ex, etc. Etymologies occur occasionally in Estienne's dictionaries: 8.1.1.5. Proper nouns

Proper nouns, identifying both places and people, are found only occasionally in VFC, but somewhat more often in CA, usually with their derivatives, as in the following example from UL1:

Proper nouns are present in large numbers in VN/EV, because they are frequent in its source document, the Lexicon of Nebrija. Many of them originate in a language other than Latin: Greek, Syrian, Hebrew, etc., although the original language is seldom identified: Estienne included proper nouns in T1531 and T1536: However, he omitted them from DLG and DFL, because by the time those works appeared he had separately printed lexica containing proper nouns, i.e. Dictionarium poeticum and Hebraea, Chaldaea, Graeca et Latina nomina (see 7.1.). An exception is Alpes, which occurs as an entry in DFL.

8.1.1.6. Marked words

Markers such as we discussed in 3.1.1.6. are found, in varying quantities, in the texts in our corpus which were printed before Estienne. They occur much less frequently in his work.

8.1.1.6.1. Temporal markers

In VFC and Calepino, the temporal markers are secundum usum modernum, secundum antiquos, non est in usu:

The CA and VN/EV do not include temporal markers in their articles.

8.1.1.6.2. Spatio-linguistic markers

The nomenclature of most of the dictionaries in our corpus contains a large quantity of lemmata of foreign origin. The connectors interpretatur and dicitur are often used and the languages of entry and exit may or may not be identified:

Calepino and Estienne's Thesaurus contain a significant quantity of Greek text, which is as much a tribute to the skill of the type-founders as it is to the erudition of the authors.

French forms are marked occasionally in CA, VFC and VN/EV:

In the Thesaurus and DLG, similar markers are also found: 8.1.1.6.3. Socio-professional markers

As we have explained in 3.1.1.6.3., technical words were not specifically marked in dictionaries of this period. The following terms may be considered 'technical':

8.1.1.6.4. Stylistic markers

Stylistic markers used in our corpus refer to vulgar or popular equivalents for Latin words. They may involve Latin terms:

or French terms:

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