Headword Selection in Arabic Lexicography
by Jack Halpern
The CJK Dictionary Institute, Japan
This monograph discusses key issues related to the selection of headwords in Arabic
dictionaries, in particular learner's dictionaries, and briefly touches on criteria for
selecting word senses. In addition, these issues are discussed as they pertain to thebrand new CJK Arabic-English Learner’s Dictionary. Since our goal is to summarize
major points, methodological details and formal citations have been omitted (thesewill be included in a forthcoming paper).

Traditional selection criteria
Headword selection is fundamental to the practice of lexicography. Particularly for
Arabic lexicographers, who must at once deal with an overabundance of olderwords and an influx of newer words, determining the criteria for selection becomesa daunting task. This problem has only recently begun to be addressed using
modern, corpus-based computational methods, an approach spearheaded by theOxford Arabic Dictionary (OAD).
Broadly speaking, selection criteria fall into five principal categories:
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.

Drawing from the Quran and classical literature
Copying from past dictionariesAnalyzing authentic texts found in corpora
Relying on the subjective judgment of the lexicographer
Determining "importance” based on both frequency and the lexicographer’s
discretion

The majority of traditional Arabic dictionaries, and many modern ones, have reliedheavily on the first two of these methods. Headwords have been selected in largepart from the Quran, poetry, and classical texts, and lexicographers have added
newer words as they have seen fit.
While dictionaries compiled in this manner may certainly serve their purposes asaids in reading classical texts, they are poorly suited for those studying Modern
Standard Arabic. As a rule, new words, especially those related to technology andmodern life, have been conspicuous by their absence. When they are included at all,they are often buried among scores of archaisms.

Modern selection criteria
In order to compile a truly practical dictionary of Modern Standard Arabic, one clear
solution is the third of the above selection criteria: that is, the use of corpora tochoose entries based on authentic texts. This is the approach taken by the recently1

published OAD, which serves admirably as a comprehensive reference for modern
Arabic. This strategy finds its greatest advantage in its objectivity: lexicographers
can rely on computational algorithms to automatically tokenize, select, andlemmatize on the basis of occurrence in corpora without excessively depending on
the lexicographer’s subjective judgment.
However, from the point of pedagogical lexicography, one of whose goals is toprovide only the most useful headwords for a learner, fully comprehensive
dictionaries are not ideal. Even superior works such as the OAD can prove to be
overwhelming or confusing for learners. Instead, learners are best served by morepractically-oriented criteria for headword selection.
To this end, some dictionaries choose to use a statistical approach, choosing words
as dictated by their frequencies of occurrence in corpora. This is the strategy chosen
by Buckwalter and Parkinson in their A Frequency Dictionary of Arabic, and once
again, this is a major step in the right direction.
However, even this frequency-based approach can ultimately prove a double-edged
sword for three reasons, discussed in more detail below: the omission of multiword
expressions, the omission of derived forms, and the mistaken inclusion of infrequentwords.

Multiword expressions
First, using a system of frequency of occurrence statistics based on orthographic
words (a sequence of letters delimited by spaces) leads to the omission of criticallyimportant multiword expressions (MWEs). An MWE can be defined as two or more
words that together function as a single lexical unit, for instance a compound wordor idiomatic expression. While spaces are of course significant for delimitation, theirpresence or absence cannot independently determine the status of a word as alexical unit. Nevertheless, the simplicity of orthographic words has established themas the basic units of analysis of Arabic corpora.
Many MWEs are, however, highly useful, and many are used as often as or more
often than single orthographic words. For example, high school and school bus are
frequent compound words, and each should be lemmatized and considered a single
dictionary entry (rather than an example or subentry under high or school). Both ofthese are written as two orthographic words, while other, similarly constructedwords like headwaiter have become single orthographic words purely by historicalhappenstance. There is therefore no reason for words like headwaiter to beprioritized as dictionary entries over MWEs like high school simply because they are
written as single orthographic words.

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Omission of multiword expressions
Listing MWEs as normal dictionary entries is standard practice amonglexicographers of Western languages, and as a result, few Western language
dictionaries equate orthographic words with dictionary headwords. This is,however, not the case in Arabic lexicography, where traditionally the root andcanonical forms served as the basic units of lemmatization with little or no attention
to MWEs.
Recent Arabic lexicography, which is focusing increasingly on corpus analysis, hasbeen unable to avoid this problem. The process of tokenization – used forsegmenting a stream of text in corpora on white spaces and punctuation marks –inevitably leads to the ignoring of MWEs. Compounds equivalent to high school are
misleadingly processed as new instances of the separate words high and school. Thisis ultimately an inaccurate reflection of the language, as it both overlooks important
MWEs and overcounts the occurrence of the individual components.
This problem is particularly pressing for Arabic lexicography, since MWEs arecommon in both modern and classical Arabic. For example, ‫' ا للشقْر قرق ٱلق ل قو لسط‬assharqul'awSaTu 'the Middle East', a compound word, and ‫ح قمد للهه‬‫' اللق ل‬alHamdu lillahi 'ThankGod', a common fixed expression, are both high frequency MWEs. However, suchlexical units, if they are included in Arabic dictionaries at all, are given only as
examples under one of their components (for instance under ‫' شل قرق‬east' or ‫ح قمد‬‫ل‬'praise').
Even works based on advanced corpus analysis such as the OAD have notsystematically included MWEs as inclusion would require a new set of analytical
tools not yet available, increasing both technical difficulty and cost. Particularly
difficult to analyze are discontinuous MWEs, analogous to took off in the phrase hetook his jacket off in English. For instance, in the phrase ‫ نل قعتلذر منقك قم لع قن‬na`tadhiru
minkum `an 'We apologize for...', the particle ‫` لع قن‬an does not immediately follow theverb ‫ نل قعتلذر‬na`tadhiru. It remains clear, however, that, whether as headwords or assubentries, the inclusion of common MWEs is in the best interest of both the generaluser and the language learner.

Omission of derived words
Yet another problem results from stemming, the process of reducing inflected orderived forms to their “stem” – generally the canonical form of a lexeme – anddecliticization, or the removal of clitics such as prepositions. Stemming is of course anecessary step in dictionary compilation: one of the most basic tasks of thelexicographer is to identify that, in the case of English, the forms eat, eating, eats,
and eaten belong to a common lexeme class, and eat may be selected as the lemma
representing that class (the canonical form).
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This presents no problem as long as stemming is limited to conjugated forms ofverbs as well as inflected forms and declensions of nouns and adjectives. In Arabic
lexicography, however, past dictionaries have generally fallen towards overly
aggressive stemming and decliticization of derived words – in other words,
unconditionally including only base forms and omitting forms derived from nouns.
For instance, while all dictionaries include the word ‫ س قر لعة‬sur’a 'speed', few
dictionaries systematically include the major derived forms such as ‫ بس قر لعة‬bisur’atin,
literally 'with speed' but commonly used as an adverb meaning 'quickly'. Suchderivations are useful to both learners and general users alike, since ‫' بس قر لعة‬quickly'and ‫' س قر لعة‬speed' are used at comparable frequencies.
Derived words thus have a place in both general and learner’s dictionaries, whileinflected and declined forms (e.g. case endings and plurals) may usually be safely
omitted. Some dictionaries, including the OAD, do occasionally include derivations
as examples under their respective lemmas, but once again, these are often included
unsystematically at the whim of the editor. Moreover, learners searching for suchderivations as bisur’atin in a paper dictionary can find the relevant example –located under the root or the canonical form – only if they have a strong grasp of
Arabic grammar. While electronic dictionaries can automatically direct users to theappropriate entry, this is a fundamental flaw for paper dictionaries, which leave
learners struggling to find common words.

Inclusion of infrequent words
Finally, almost as problematic as the omissions discussed above is the inclusion ofwords and senses that are rarely used in modern Arabic.
Arabic includes a vast number of words and countless synonyms accumulated andpreserved over many centuries within the dusty tomes of classical dictionaries.
Many Arabic scholars look to the 13th century dictionary Lisān al-‘Arab as a standard
reference, despite the fact that its contents are at times irrelevant to modern Arabic.
Rather than deleting such archaic words as they have gone out of use, however,classical Arabic lexicographers have held on to them tenaciously. As a result,modern Arabic lexicographers now face the formidable task of separating the wheatfrom the chaff to ensure that the headwords selected reflect contemporary usage.
Clearly, up-to-date corpora should play a critical role in this effort, but utilizing
corpora effectively is no easy task. A frequency-based approach that selects entries
based on token counts alone leads to the inclusion of words that are used frequently
as components of compounds but used seldom, if ever, on their own. One example is‫ تشق رين‬tishriin, which is not used by itself but is a common component of suchcompound words as ‫ تشق رين الل قْرول‬tishriin 'al'awwal 'October' and ‫ تشسرين ٱلثقْراني‬tishriinaththaani ‘November’.

4Another example is the word ‫ح قمد‬‫ ل‬Hamd ’praise’ in ‫’ اللق لح قمد للهه‬alHamdu lillaahi ‘ThankGod’. Although this phrase is extremely frequent in modern Arabic, Hamd is muchless common as an independent word. Thus a pure statistical approach based on
counting tokens would misleadingly assign Hamd a high frequency simply becauseof its occurrence in the full phrase. Indeed, Buckwalter and Parkinson’s Frequency
Dictionary lists this word at a frequency of 296 out of 5000, misleadingly signaling
to the learner that the word is a high priority in its own right. Lexicographers must
thus be careful to avoid the trap of listing such components as independent
dictionary entries simply because they occur frequently.
As a side note, the use of corpora does not – on the other side of the coin – guarantee
the inclusion of all frequent words and expressions. Even Buckwalter andParkinsons’s excellent Frequency Dictionary is missing such common words as ‫أذنل‬'adhina 'to permit' while on the other hand it lists many rarer words not useful tolearners . This once again highlights the fact that corpus statistics require careful
editing and supplementation in order to be of most benefit to learners.

Pedagogical selection criteria
In compiling The CJK Arabic-English Learner’s Dictionary (CALD), we haveavoided the potential pitfalls above, including overreliance on frequency statistics
and undue dependence on classical sources. Based on a systematic approach, this
dictionary is designed to meet the specific needs of non-native learners of Arabic in
the beginner to intermediate levels.
To achieve these aims, we have made a special effort to include frequent words,
derivations and multiword expressions drawn from contemporary Arabic corpora,textbooks for learners, modern learner’s dictionaries, the web, and other sources. To
ensure that the selected entries and word senses truly reflect standard
contemporary usage, and furthermore to ensure that they are truly useful to thelearner, each entry and sense was checked and double-checked by a team oflexicographers experienced in Arabic pedagogy and deeply versed in Arabic
grammar. This team validated the occurrence of entries and word senses as theyoccur in the living language while avoiding the common practice of including words
and senses merely on the authority of other, often classical sources.
To summarize, we have brought CALD in line with modern pedagogical lexicography
by following the guidelines below.
1.
2.
3.
4.

Potential headwords were selected through analysis of corpora and modern
pedagogical materials such as learner’s dictionaries, textbooks and the web.
Special efforts were made to include modern words such as blog and ATM.
Rare and archaic words were, for the most part, omitted by relying on
modern corpora and sources.
Dialectical words were omitted regardless of frequency within the corpora.
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5.
6.
7.
8.

Headwords and senses were further culled by a team of lexicographersexperienced in Arabic pedagogy to maximize relevance to learners.
Multiword expressions were systematically included as main entries or
subentries rather than as examples.
Word senses were listed in order of importance to accurately reflect modernusage.
Important derived words, especially adverbs, were systematically included.

The above approach has allowed us to enjoy the benefits of corpora-based
lexicography – namely the omission of rare and archaic words – while avoiding
dialectal words and high frequency orthographic words that are seldom used on
their own. Furthermore, the systematic inclusion of important derived words, forinstance adverbs of the pattern ‫ ببطق ء‬bibut’in ‘slowly’ and ‫ لر قغ اما‬raghman 'in spite' (noteven found in comprehensive dictionaries) enables even users of paper dictionaries
to quickly search for such words without knowledge of their roots.

Conclusion
Throughout the compiling process, we have striven to ensure that CALD is fully inkeeping with the principles of pedagogical lexicography. We have made great efforts
to create a dictionary in which learners can easily find the words most relevant tothem, whether they be roots, multiple word expressions, or derived words. After all,dictionary users, and in particular learners, are generally not concerned with thesecategories per se, but rather with quickly locating the relevant words or expressions
and their most important senses. Words must not, therefore, be included on thebasis of their classical history, grammatical status, or raw frequency, nor must they
be omitted merely because they are derivations or multiword expressions.
By thus recalibrating our ideas of “words” in Arabic and the criteria necessary for
judging “importance,” we can create reference works in which users and learners
can easily find the words and expressions that truly reflect modern usage.

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