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Johannes Fournier: Vorüberlegungen zum Aufbau eines Verbundes von Dialektwörterbüchern

In the present article, it is proposed that the five dialect dictionaries covering the south-western part of the German linguistic area, namely, the dictionary of the Alsatian Dialects ("Wörterbuch der elsässischen Mundarten"), the dictionary of the German dialects of Lorraine ("Wörterbuch der deutsch-lothringischen Mundarten"), the Rhenish dictionary ("Rheinisches Wörterbuch"), the dictionary of the German dialect of Luxembourg ("Luxemburger Wörterbuch") and the dictionary of the dialect of the Palatinate ("Pfälzisches Wörterbuch"), should be linked in an electronic network in such a way that corresponding entries could be connected with each other through hyperlinks, so that a comprehensive comparison of the lexemes in these dialects could be carried out. After a short description of the characteristics of each of these dictionaries, there is a discussion of various methods of establishing which entries are of identical origin and meaning and of how these could be connected with each other. This discussion starts by looking at the cross-references in the printed dictionaries themselves, then proceeds to consider the mechanical sorting of entries and goes on to examine the idea of listing lemmata according to the standard language and organizing them as hypertext. The discussion concludes by looking into the creation of an onomasiological network. Starting with a brief analysis of the dictionary entries, which examines the links between the typography, layout and microstructure of the individual articles with regard to the feasibility of the automatic recording of individual categories of information, the article goes on to suggest ways in which the lexical information contained in the dictionary entries can be evaluated in the framework of a database. Finally, the steps necessary for such a project are sketched and an assessment of the time and personnel needed is also given.