Germanic Lexicon Project
Relations and Properties

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Relations

Following is an example of a relation between headwords in two different dictionaries:

Entries in the Germanic Lexicon Project search system can be annotated with relations to other entries. The "is cognate with" relation in the above example is one kind; there are many other kinds of relations.

We recognize two types of relations: symmetric and asymmetric. If a relation is symmetric, then for any (x,y) which is in the relation, (y,x) is in the relation as well. If a relationship is asymmetric, then if (x,y) is in the relation, (y,x) is NOT in the relation. For example, in human families, "is a sibling of" is a symmetric relation (if Jane is your sibling, then you are Jane's sibling as well), but "is a parent of" is an asymmetric relation (if Sally is your mother, you can't be Sally's mother).

Properties

We also allow entries to have properties. For example, a noun might belong to the class of a-stem nouns. We recognize an a-stem property and allow a headword to be associated with this property.

There are various kinds of properties. Some are morphological categories, such as a-stem nouns or preterite-present verbs. Some are semantic categories, such as words for colors or words for animals. Some are on various other points of interest.

Following are the relations and properties which we currently recognize. (Suggestions for additional relations and properties are welcome; post them to the Message Board.)



is a correction/extension on
Type: asymmetric

Dictionaries often contain a list of errata at the end. The "correction" relationship is a pointer from an entry in the main text to a correction on an errata page.

This relation can also be used to point from a headword in the original 1898 volume of Bosworth/Toller to an extension of that headword in the 1921 supplement.

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Code: 1010


is same word as
Type: symmetric

This relation exists between two headwords in separate dictionaries which are about the same word in the same language. Thus, if there were two dictionaries about Gothic in the Search system, then this relation could be used to connect the headwords between the two dictionaries. At the present writing, there are no cases where the Search system contains multiple dictionaries about a single language, so this relation is not yet in use. Specifically, this relation should NOT be used to indicate that two words are cognate, which is a different relation.

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Code: 1015


is parent of
Type: asymmetric

In Fick/Falk/Torp 1909, the headwords are in a hierarchical arrangement; a "child" entry is morphologically derived from the "parent". The morphological derivation typically involves the addition of suffixes. Sometimes the derived word is in a different ablaut grade from its parent, and there can be different Verner's Law variants involved as well.

This hierarchy is graphically represented in the original paper text by indenting a child entry under its parent entry. In some cases, the indentation goes as much as four levels deep.

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Code: 1020


contains a see-also reference to
Type: asymmetric

Many dictionary entries contain a reference to specific other headwords. The reference can be denoted with "see also", "v.", etc.

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Code: 1025


is a reflex of
Type: asymmetric

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Code: 2010


is cognate with
Type: symmetric

Two words (which are not in the same language) are cognate just if are inherited from a single earlier word in a shared parent language. For example, English fish is cognate with German Fisch because both are inherited from Proto-Germanic *fiskaz.

The term cognate has a highly specific technical meaning in historical/comparative linguistics. Unfortunately, there is widespread misunderstanding about the meaning of the word. Even many professional linguists sometimes use the word inappropriately.

Cognate does not mean "similar in sound and meaning" (although this often incidentally happens to be true). Cognate is not correctly applied to a loan word and its source word in the donor language (English generation and French géneration are NOT cognate; the English word is a loan from French. Inheritance and borrowing are two different things!). Cognate does not mean "is somehow etymologically connected with".

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Code: 2015


is borrowed from
Type: asymmetric

A loan word is a word borrowed from another language. Note that borrowing is not the same thing as inheritance.

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Code: 2020


is morphologically derived from
Type: asymmetric

English modernize is morphologically derived from modern through the addition of the suffix -ize.

The compound blackboard is morphologically derived from both black and board. It's OK to have pointers from multiple headwords to a single word.

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Code: 2025


is a different ablaut grade of
Type: symmetric

Indo-European morphology is characterized by ablaut, or the changing of vowels in different forms of a word. English sing sang sung preserves an example of this old system.

The most common type of ablaut in Proto-Indo-European is e-o-zero (i.e., the vowel is /e/, /o/, or no vowel at all, depending on the form of the word). If the vowel in a particular form is /e/, the form is said to be in the e-grade; likewise with the o-grade and the zero grade.

If a root existed in multiple ablaut grades in Proto-Indo-European, it is not unusual for one ablaut grade to be preserved in one daughter language, and another ablaut grade to be preserved in another. Such pairs are not perfectly cognate since they don't descend from precisely the same proto-form; rather, they descend from two separate proto-forms which were morphologically related in the proto-language.

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Code: 2050


is an s-mobile variant of
Type: symmetric

There is a poorly understood phenomenon where /s/ alternates with zero in Indo-European cognate sets. For example, English steer appears to be cognate with Latin taurus (notice that English has the /s/, and Latin does not). It is not the case that a particular daughter language always has (or never has) the /s/-variant; rather, the /s/-variants are scattered seemingly at random across daughter languages (so the alternation, whatever its cause, does not appear to be the product of regular sound change in any of the daughter languages).

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Code: 2055


is a synomym for
Type: symmetric

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Code: 3010


is an antonym of
Type: symmetric

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Code: 3015


is a hypernym of
Type: asymmetric

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Code: 3020


noun
Type: property

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Code: 4005


adjective
Type: property

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Code: 4010


pronoun
Type: property

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Code: 4015


verb
Type: property

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Code: 4020


adverb
Type: property

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Code: 4025


preposition
Type: property

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Code: 4030


conjunction
Type: property

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Code: 4035


interjection
Type: property

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Code: 4040


masculine
Type: property

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Code: 4505


neuter
Type: property

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Code: 4510


feminine
Type: property

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Code: 4515


a-stem
Type: property

This word is a noun of the a-stem class. An a-stem noun is either masculine or neuter. The stem of an a-stem noun ended with the vowel *a in Proto-Germanic, deriving from earlier PIE *o; however, the sound changes in the daughter languages often eliminated this *a, thus obscuring the rationale for the name of this morphological class. There are many a-stem nouns; it is one of the most common noun types in Germanic.

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Code: 5010


ja-stem
Type: property

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Code: 5015


wa-stem
Type: property

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Code: 5020


o-stem
Type: property

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Code: 5025


jo-stem
Type: property

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Code: 5030


i-stem
Type: property

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Code: 5035


u-stem
Type: property

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Code: 5040


weak noun
Type: property

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Code: 5045


r-stem
Type: property

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Code: 5050


nd-stem
Type: property

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Code: 5055


strong verb
Type: property

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Code: 5105


strong verb class I
Type: property

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Code: 5110


strong verb class II
Type: property

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Code: 5115


strong verb class III
Type: property

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Code: 5120


strong verb class IV
Type: property

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Code: 5125


strong verb class V
Type: property

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Code: 5130


strong verb class VI
Type: property

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Code: 5135


strong verb class VII
Type: property

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Code: 5140


weak verb
Type: property

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Code: 5150


weak verb class 1
Type: property

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Code: 5155


weak verb class 2
Type: property

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Code: 5160


weak verb class 3
Type: property

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Code: 5165


weak verb class 4
Type: property

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Code: 5170


Tolkien
Type: property

The word is somehow relevant to the writings of the celebrated fantasy author J. R. R. Tolkien. Tolkien was a specialist in Germanic linguistics, and many proper names and other words in his stories are from the early Germanic languages.

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Code: 6005


Wicca/Magick
Type: property

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Code: 6010


Christianity
Type: property

This word is somehow relevant to the Christian religion, e.g. a type of ecclesiatical official, a technical theological term, etc.

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Code: 6015


Agriculture
Type: property

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Code: 7010


Animals
Type: property

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Code: 7015


Body
Type: property

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Code: 7020


Clothing
Type: property

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Code: 7025


Color
Type: property

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Code: 7030


Death
Type: property

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Code: 7035


Emotion
Type: property

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Code: 7040


Food
Type: property

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Code: 7045


Family
Type: property

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Code: 7050


Health
Type: property

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Code: 7055


House
Type: property

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Code: 7060


Land
Type: property

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Code: 7065


Metal
Type: property

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Code: 7070


Music
Type: property

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Code: 7075


Number
Type: property

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Code: 7080


Plants
Type: property

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Code: 7085


Religion
Type: property

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Code: 7090


Sea
Type: property

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Code: 7095


Boating
Type: property

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Code: 7100


Sky
Type: property

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Code: 7105


Law
Type: property

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Code: 7110


Technology
Type: property

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Code: 7115


Tree
Type: property

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Code: 7120


Warfare
Type: property

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Code: 7125