Unmasking of English Dictionaries

R. M. W. Dixon is Professor and Deputy Director of the Language and Culture Research Centre at James Cook University, North Queensland and a Fellow of the British Academy. His books include Australian Aboriginal words in English; their origin and meaning (2nd ed, 1995); A semantic approach to English grammar (2nd ed, 2005) and Making new words; morphological derivation in English (2014) He is the author of the classic three-volume text Basic linguistic theory (2010–2012), and has published grammars of languages from Amazonia and Fiji, and of several of the original languages of Australia.

• Prologue: the work in advance; 1. How the language is made up; 2. What a dictionary needs to do; 3. Semantic set: finish, cease, and stop; 4. Explaining hard words; 5. Putting everything in; 6. Semantic set: big and little, large and small; 7. Spreading wings; 8. Semantic organisation; 9. Semantic set: fast, quick, rapid, swift, slow, and speed; 10. No need to keep re-inventing the wheel; 11. The nineteenth century; 12. Semantic set: want, wish (for), and desire; 13. The role of grammar; 14. Standing still; 15. The way forward.

'An engaging, provocative and at times amusing examination of English dictionaries and their history. Lexicographers will not agree with points in Professor Dixon's program for a new sort of dictionary, but they would go amiss if they ignore him completely.' Jim Rader, Senior Editor, Merriam-Webster, Inc.