DEVELOPING ELECTRONIC DICTIONARY FOR ANTONYMS AND SYNONYMS IN
TAMIL
Dr.p.vijaya,
CAS in Linguistics, Annamalai University. Chidambaram
Introduction
This
paper is mainly concerned about developing electronic dictionary for Antonyms
and Synonyms in Tamil. This e-dictionary makes learning simple and it covers
the lexical items used in Tamil. This widespread introduction of new lexical
items would be the great help to the students and research scholars useful who
work in the Tamil Language and Linguistics.
Lexicography means the collection
of lexical items and description of the way they are used. Dictionary is a
simple tool which helps us to pronounce in the language. It gives meanings to
words which cannot be understood or words that have more than one meaning.
Besides meaning, it also provides information on the reader syllables,
intonation and pronunciation of words. Dictionaries are considered practical
sources of information that learners and teachers can depend on. Dictionaries
could take different formats like traditional print dictionaries of varies
types, handheld electronic dictionaries, concordance, indexes, terminologies,
online dictionaries and CD ROM dictionaries depending on the purpose of their
required usage.
Handheld
electronic dictionaries, also known as "pocket electronic
dictionaries" or PEDs, resemble miniature clamshell laptop computers, complete with full
keyboards and LCD screens. Because they are intended to be
fully portable, the dictionaries are battery-powered and made with durable
casing material. Dictionaries have become very important tools for learning of
a language especially the new forms of electronic dictionaries. Several
technological developments have led to the invention of electronic dictionaries
in the operational processes of teaching and learning process. Language can be studied from the point of view of language
structure and language use. Study of language
structure is called structural or formal linguistic study. Study of language
use is called as functional linguistic
study.
Languages are described qualitatively in terms
of grammatical units like nouns, verbs, noun phrases, verb phrases,
subject, object, agent, goal, etc. to explain the structure of the
language. Most of the grammars take a sentence as the minimum unit for the
description of the structure. The structure has been studied from different
view points and many linguistic theories have emergered to account the
syntactic pattern of the sentences. Nowadays more and more students use electronic dictionaries
instead of ordinary dictionaries. The discussion about using electronic
dictionaries has been popular these years. The most important advantage of an
electronic dictionary is that it’s very convenient to use. Whenever you meet
new words or expressions, you can know the meaning quickly.
Electronic Dictionary
An
electronic dictionary is a dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can
be accessed through a number of different media. Electronic dictionary can be
used to refer to any reference material stored in electronic form that gives
information about the spelling, meaning, or use of words. It is the retrieval
system, rather than the information content,
which
makes electronic dictionary use such a revolutionary experience compared to the
consultation of a hard-copy dictionary.
Online
Dictionaries and Electronic Dictionaries
There are different kinds of
websites available for Tamil Dictionaries which can be utilized for learning
Tamil language. For example, There are several types of online
dictionary including:
·
www.sol.com.sg/classroom/dictionaries/html
is a website for accessing the Tamil lexicon.
·
website
for an online web based English Tamil dictionary is www.geocities.com/Athens/Acropolis/8780/. The University of Chicago has
developed a website to access the Cre-A: Dictionary of Contemporary Tamil (on
line version) - www.lib.Uchicago.edu/LibInfo/Subjects/SouthAsia/.
·
Another
website for Tamil- English, English-Tamil and Tamil-Tamil Dictionary
www.murasu.com/akaram will be useful for learning Tamil language through
online.
·
They
typically offer monolingual and bilingual dictionaries, one or more
thesauruses, and technical or specialized
dictionaries.
Examples include The
FreeDictionary.com and
Dictionary.com.
·
'Premium'
dictionaries available on subscription, such as the Oxford English
Dictionary. Dictionaries from a single publisher,
free to the user and supported by advertising. Examples include Collins Online
Dictionary, Duden
Online, Larousse bilingual dictionaries.
Some
online dictionaries are regularly updated, keeping abreast of language change.
Many have additional content, such as blogs and features on new words.
An electronic
dictionary is a dictionary whose data exists in digital form and can be
accessed through a number of different media. Electronic dictionaries can be
found in several forms, including:
·
as
dedicated handheld devices
·
as
CD-ROMs and DVD-ROMs, typically packaged with a printed dictionary, to be installed on the user’s own computer as
free or paid-for online products
Computational
Lexicography
It
covers computational methods tools designed
to assist the various lexicographical tasks, that includes preparing
lexicographical evidence from many sources,
recording the database form of the relevant linguistic inform data
editing of lexicographic entities, and dissemination of lexicographical
products.
The
computational lexicography involves the following processes:
- using
computers to assist ID, capture, encoding, dissemination of lexicographic
information.
- Implementing/
leveraging/ integrating lexicographic resources in computational tasks.
- supplying/
comparing/ evaluating MRDs (Machine Readable Dictionaries).
- tools
for all of above.
Main
sources of information for Computational Linguistics work.
MRD (Machine
Readable Dictionaries)
- the
interaction between computational
linguistics and lexicographers has in the past been virtually limited to
building sample tools for producing indexes and concordance of large corpora.
- lexicographers
should use the techniques developed by computational linguistics for
browsing machine readable dictionary
in order to reuse their data.
- in
future electronic publishing benefit end user by improving access to the
wealth of information currently available in dictionaries but not easily
retrievable via alphabetical order
alone.
The
processing of text corpora
Ø
one
of the reason is that computational linguistics which covers both linguistics
and computers, developing very fast so that what held true today may be
superseded tomorrow.
Ø
Another
obvious reason is that computational linguistics is so vast a domain that so
single individual can not be expected to cover the whole of it, nor can the
combined experience of this better.
.
What
do we mean by lexicographical information?
A text
could be defined as a set of one or more (written or spoken) words forming a
consistent whole from a semantic, syntactic, and pragmatic point of view.
Lexicographer
makes use of ‘Primary’ texts and of ‘secondary’ texts.
Texts---à
Processing ---à Lexicographical information
By ‘lexicographic information’ we mean the kind of
information one can expect to find in a dictionary.
Synonym
Synonyms are words that have the same or very
similar meaning. The absolute identity or similarity in the meaning of several
lexemes is called synonymy. The different lexemes that are related to one
meaning are called synonyms. The
meaning of these words need not be exactly the same. Most words can have one or
more synonyms.
The
synonyms can be subgrouped into personal nouns and abstract nouns. al:va:r, irai, iraivan, puranta:r, mannavan, ve:ntan, ve:ntar and ve:ntu are the synonyms of the personal
noun, aracan ‘king’. Similarly Ilukkam, Ilukku, ili, e:tam, ta:, ti:tu,
pali, ma:cu and vatu are the
synonyms of the abstract noun kurram
‘offence’ .
Antonym
Antonyms are
words which have almost opposite meanings. Most words can have one or more
antonyms. The opposite of meaning within two-member sets of lexemes is
called antonym and the sets of two words which refer to the opposite extreme
from identity of meaning, are called binary contrasts or antonyms. There are
several binary contrasts in Tamil Language. As in the case of synonyms, the
antonyms can also be sub-grouped into personal nouns, abstract nouns,
adjectives and verbs. periyar/ciriyar,
va:ymai/poymai, eliya/ariya and
a:rum/a:ra:te: are the binary contrasts of personal noun, abstract noun,
adjective and verb respectively.
Aim
and Objectives
The
main aim of this research paper is to study the various synonyms and antonyms
used in Tamil Language with their respective references and finally create an
inventory of synonyms and antonyms found in Tamil Language.
•
For
the proposed work, about 500 antonyms and synonyms in Tamil have been collected
from tirukkural books and school text books.
•
To
develop an e-dictionary for antonyms and synonyms in Tamil.
•
To
provide an asset to Tamil language and also its community like students,
researchers, teachers, and so on.
•
To
make the students enrich their vocabulary power through a
technology-incorporated dictionary i.e. a virtual software (programme) written
in a programming language (i.e. JAVA).
•
To
investigate the design, construction and use of electronic dictionaries in
natural language processing the notion of re-usability of lexical resources is
taken as a focus, enabling considerations of existing lexical resources,
including publishers (MRDs) and lexical database, as well as the constructions
of new resources.
Scope
of this study:
- The dictionary of Tamil is a
completely new one of its kind for students of linguistics.
- This dictionary covers the terms
used in General and Applied Linguistics.
- This widespread introduction of
new terms would be the great help to the students and Research scholars of
in Tamil/ Linguistics.
Methodology
The process of the research article has four different
phases’ viz. data collection, the structure of a data entry, analysis,
verification and evaluation.
a.
Data collection
The
lexical items related to the same meaning (synonyms) and opposite meaning
(antonyms) have been collected along
with the references of their respective and different sources like Tamil text
books, Journals, English Glossaries, Language corpus and website.
b. The structure of
a Data Entry
— The collected data have been
digitalized and alphabetized in Tamil.
— Tamil entry: The “head word”
— In Tamil script
In
Synonyms
|
murd; (1)
|
Nte;jd; (382>549>899)
Nte;J (551)
Gue;jhh; (780)
,iw (547>563)
,iwtd; (690)
kd;dtd; (553)
Nte;jh; (481)
Ms;thh; (447)
|
|
nry;tk;
|
nry;tk; (125>247>755)
Mf;fk; (112>562)
cilik (89>558)
cud; (1263)
gw;W (606)
NgW (61)
nghUs; (1009)
khL (168)
jpU (179>215>482>616>408>374
|
In
Antonyms
|
,ir
(238)
|
tir
(238>239>230)
|
|
nry;yplk;
|
my;yplk;
(301)
|
|
M$o;
|
Ngh$o;
(371)
|
c.
Analysis
The
data collected have been linguistically analysed and categorically identified
as personal nouns, abstract nouns, adjectives, verbs and so on. Finally, all
the lexical items collected and analysed in different lists category-wise.
d.
Verification
The verification phase is very important one as it
enables the product of the research to attain perfection and accuracy without
any error. So the whole developing e-dictionary for antonyms and synonyms work
have been meticulously verified and neatly in relevant categories.
e.
Evaluation
The
final stage of the process of the research is a scrupulous evaluation of the
work, which would be undertaken after the accomplishment of full-fledged work.
The evaluation would be in the point of view as to what extent the product of
the project will cater to needs of the educated Tamil public in general, and
the students and research scholars in particular.
f.
Computation of data
Finally, all the information has been instructed to
the computer by using the JAVA programming languages for compilation of the
e-dictionary for Antonyms and Synonyms in Tamil.
The
advantages of using electronic dictionaries
Let's
have a look at its advantages.
Electronic Dictionaries are
user-friendly, very fast and easier to carry.
- Students relate better to it and are more
enthusiastic and sounds can be heard.
- They are better
for class based activities, while paper dictionaries would be better for
homework based tasks
- What's more, electronic
dictionaries are becoming more and more advanced: they can pronounce the
words clearly, provide sample sentences to illustrate word usage and store
difficult words for special memorization.
- You don’t need to waste much time
turning the page seeking for the new words.
- That’s special function may help
you remember some new words with high efficiency.
- Last but not least, the designing of
electronic dictionaries are more and more portable, and they are easy for
students carrying.
- When learners use an electronic dictionary their
word search becomes faster.
- This allows learners to spend more time on reading
comprehension or on searching word meanings.
- A comparison
between electronic and paper dictionary revealed that a lot of differences
exist between them in some features.
- The vocabulary
items covered in the electronic dictionary exceeds the limited number in
the paper one.
- Some features do
not exist in the paper dictionary such as databank, reference book, voice
recorder, calculator, MP3. In addition, it does not include speech
features, updates and interactive learning functions like irregular verbs,
idioms, dialogues, sentence structure, accent correction, and grammar
explanations.
- Obviously, the
electronic dictionary is faster, lighter and more mobile than the paper
based dictionaries.
Developing
Tools (Screen Shot):
Conclusion:
Finally
the research article has been brought out in the shape of e-dictionary for
Antonyms and Synonyms in Tamil. The electronic dictionaries are one of the ways
of Tamil computing, because lexical items in Tamil and their various functions
and role of their thematic expressions are computed by using various
programming Languages for example learners for whom Tamil as a second language.
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3.
De
Schryver, Gilles-Maurice, ‘Lexicographers’ dreams in the electronic dictionary
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S (2012) Role of electronic dictionaries in Tamil Language Teaching and
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