A learners' combinatorial production dictionary of English: some fundamental design criteria

This article deals with the notion of a learners’ combinatorial dictionary designed to aid foreign students in production tasks. It focusses on lexical collocation, arguing that other combinatorial phenomena (especially grammatical collocations and valency patterns) are already dealt with adequately in general learners’ dictionaries. It examines criteria for the selection of both headwords and word combinations, and also discusses aspects of the presentation of meaning. The article emphasises the need to constantly bear in mind the very precise, didactic purpose of the dictionary. Examples are given of lexicographical practice in three currrently available combinatorial dictionaries, and some of their shortcomings are noted. Throughout, the focus is on the paper version of the combinatorial dictionary, though in Section 3 some of the benefits of electronic presentation are discussed.