VOCABULARY CONTROL

VOCABULARY CONTROL. A term in applied LINGUISTICS for the organization of WORDS into groups and levels, especially as the outcome of FREQUENCY COUNTS and in the form of word lists intended to help in writing, reading, and learning languages. Counting words and creating word lists is a complex task, and for useful results requires an initial conception of ‘word’ for the purpose in hand. Problems regarding what to count as a word include: (1) The orthographic problem of spelling variants such as colour and color. (2) The homonymic problem of identical forms such as bear (animal) and bear (carry). (3) The homographic problem of identical forms such as wind (air on the move) and wind (to turn, twist). (4) The phonological problem of statistics relating to spoken (and informally written) language (do items like 'll and n't count as will and not, are they special events to be counted on their own, or are they parts of units like I'll and didn't, to be counted separately?). (5) The morphological problem of the forms of be (are be, am, art, is, are, was, were different words or realizations of the same word?). (6) The lexical problems of counting COMPOUNDS and distinguishing them from ATTRIBUTIVE forms (is a key decision one word or two, in the same way that a keyhole or key-hole or key hole is one word?). (7) The statistical problem that, even granted that there is a utilitarian solution to the preceding problem, should the count include only agreed compounds or both compounds and their elements (so that for keyhole one counts keyhole, key, hole)? (8) The grammatical problem of particles and prefixes (does one count the up in put up with alongside the up in up the hill, and with the up in uproot?). (9) The onomastic problem of personal and place-names (are Manchester, Manila, and Manitoba, etc., to be counted as words simply because they appear in texts?). (10) The polysemic problem of deciding whether to count fire in a grate and fire at an artillery range as the same or a different word. (11) The lexicographical problem of how to describe and list the findings of any such survey, so that people of different experience can see and appreciate what has been counted. After all of these, there are two further problems: how to train the personnel and program the computer so that such highly sophisticated work can be brought to a successful conclusion. See HOMONYM, POLYSEMY, VARIANT.