Suffix -mente adverbs in DAELE, a Spanish Learners' dictionary

Abstract

This paper looks at how Spanish –mente adverbs are shown in DAELE, an electronic dictionary for advanced-level students of Spanish, currently being developed at the Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Barcelona). Since a learners’ dictionary is a tool conceived not only for decoding but also for production, information about use is deemed highly relevant in this dictionary. That is why new ways to provide adverb-production information are explored. Our discussion considers aspects of both the macrostructure and the microstructure. In terms of the macrostructure, the main problem arising from the lexicographical representation of adverbs ending in –mente is to decide which adverbs are to be included in the dictionary. In the Spanish lexicographical tradition there are several answers to this question, which range from including only a few adverbs to including all documented adverbs. In terms of the microstructure, it is important to provide all the semantic, morphosyntactic and pragmatic information on how to use an adverb, by means of a set of definition formulae which are both user friendly and informative.