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Aleksejus Andronovas St. Petersburg State University Department of General Linguistics Universitetskaya nab. 11, 199034 St. Petersburg, Russia [email protected]

Received 2002 12 05

MISUNDERSTANDINGS ABOUT THE FREQUENCY DICTIONARY

In volume XLVI of Acta Linguistica Lithuanica, while reviewing Vitas Labutis’s scholarly work (pp. 230–248), Artūras Judžentis recounts some statements from his review of the two dictionaries by the two of us—The Frequency Dictionary of Contemporary Written Lithuanian (in descending order of frequency) (1997) and another dictionary with the same title, but arranged in alphabetical order (1998) (although he confused our first and last names; see p. 245).

We wished to respond publicly to the author for presenting statements made not by him but by Labutis because, since Judžentis did not make use of the possibilities afforded by participial constructions, we can only assume that the views of both the reviewer and Labutis coincide: namely, that frequency dictionaries can be compiled without following the requirements of linguistic statistics (cf. Labutis’s statement: “On the basis of text samples grounded in statistical principles, and having established that some eel or ide occasionally slips through their net, the text sample should probably be adjusted.” (Kalbos kultūra 72, 1999, p. 113.)) Judžentis, having repeated without any comment not only Labutis’s reproach—shared, incidentally, by others who have not sufficiently grasped the principles for compiling linguostatistical word lists and dictionaries—that certain words are missing from the list (“… one misses (…) everyday realities, the names of plants and animals, words pertaining to culture and intellectual activity …”), also deemed it necessary to remind readers that frequency dictionaries cannot be supplemented with particular words, however desirable they may be. Such is simply the nature of linguostatistical methods: nothing can be added or removed—the object to be described statistically is the text that actually exists, or a body of such texts, without any additions.

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with no additions. It may happen—and indeed it does—that not all words belonging to the same class or group make it into such a frequency list (for instance, a kinship-term group may be missing some aunt by marriage), but that is the nature of linguostatistical work: do not supplement, however tempting it may be.

Judžentis’s agreement with Labutis’s reproaches is also evident in his stylistic choices, for example: “It is noted with concern that the dictionary contains many nonstandard words (…)”. Apparently, the two linguists together simply fail to grasp an elementary point: however much linguists might wish it otherwise, a snapshot of usage cannot be altered if one does not want, in the old familiar way, to distort reality and present an aspiration as reality.

Some other points mentioned in the review should also be disputed with Labutis, not Judžentis, but the reviewer is responsible for the sentence just printed: “The criteria for determining parts of speech are unclear, and therefore the statistical tables of parts of speech do not inspire confidence.” This sounds like a verdict, since our dictionaries indicate the part of speech for each word (which is why, incidentally, the tables are not what matters most, but those labels). Judžentis repeats this statement, which means that he firmly believes Labutis’s conclusion that “the dictionary and its points of reference, unfortunately, disappoint more often than they please.”

Perhaps there would be little point in arguing with one linguist or another if there were no prospects for linguostatistical work. All the more so since we have already blazed a trail, have the tools, and possess a certain degree of expertise. Frequency dictionaries of some languages, similar in nature to ours, were compiled 50 or even 100 years ago (for more on this, see Laima Grumadienė’s article in the same volume 46 of ALL). Today things are moving forward—the major dictionaries of standard or contemporary languages generally already provide frequency information for the most common words, which means that it is time for the Lithuanian language (or Lithuanian lexicography) to fill this gap as well. Thus, word frequency may soon need to be determined not on isolated occasions, but continuously. This would make an elementary truth clear: the most frequent words change because they depend on many ever-changing circumstances of life. There is no doubt that the words themselves would include both attractive and less attractive ones, since they would be counted from texts drawn from real life, rather than selectively chosen merely to illustrate the beauty of language.

Received 2002 12 23

Laima Grumadienė Institute of the Lithuanian Language P. Vileišio St. 5, 2055 Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected]

Vida Žilinskienė Lithuanian Law University Ateities St. 20, 2057 Vilnius, Lithuania [email protected]