Reading Guide
The initial section of the entry provides for each lemma:
- a list of Related Words, which are themselves the subject of accessible entries: the category, broadly understood, includes corradicals, altered wors and pronominal verbs, while variants with similar meanings are not considered.
- the Lexical Class
- the number of total Occurrences and of Occurrences per work; if present, occurrences in quotations or self-quotations are also noted.
- the Diachrony of works recording occurrences of the lemma.
At this point, the lemma is analysed through its relationships within the sentence, so as to make visible the combinations that determine the meaning (Arguments) or that modify it (Modifiers). The Relations and Meanings field therefore provides four possible openings:
- Arguments
- Argument of
- Modifiers
- Modifier of.
Underlying the classification proposed here is the distinction between relational, or unsaturated, concepts, which draw relations, and classificatory, or saturated, concepts, which enter into these relations as passive terms. For each relational word (typically, verbs and nouns that classify processes or properties) the Arguments that complete its meaning are specified, while the classificatory words (typically, nouns that designate objects or masses of substance) are accompanied by the heading Argument of.
Also indicated are Modifiers, or items that modify the meaning (the concept of modifier is used here in a broad sense and includes, in addition to adverbs, adjectives and nouns, also complements, similes, relative clauses); conversely, words that the lemma itself modifies are categorized under Modifier of.
Thus, the semantic value of each term is determined by its combination with Arguments and Modifiers; on the other hand, the formalisation proposed here makes it clear how each word can act on the meaning of others as an argument, or as a modifier.
To the right of the Relationships, and those linked to them, the Meanings are detailed.
The usage mark, attributed to each meaning of the term, adopts the eleven categories employed in GRADIT (for the acronyms, see the field Marche d’uso in the Tools section). However, since the starting point and perspective of this work are those of SQU (1947 and 1958), the word’s field of usage is derived from dictionaries coeval with Levi’s first book, with results that may differ from those of GRADIT. Significant differences are accounted for in the Notes which, when appropriate, are inserted to discuss issues of particular interest or complexity.
This is followed by the Contexts in which the headwords occur. For each occurrence, the provided text segment is set in the ten lines preceding and the ten following the occurrence of the headword itself, possibly extended to the first full stop, preceding or following.