“Explanatory Dictionary of Complex Abbreviated Words of the Russian Language” as a Dictionary of a New Type: Synthesis of Prescriptive and Descriptive Approaches

The article is devoted to the description of the peculiarities of “Explanatory Dictionary of Compound Abbreviated Words” from the position of realization in it of the features of descriptive and prescriptive explanatory dictionary. This dictionary is being produced at the Department of Russian Language of Donetsk State University. This project is a private dictionary of abbreviations of a “new type”. The special object of description in it are complex abbreviated appellatives, which have been almost never studied by lexicographers before. In addition, the description of a language material takes into account not only structural, but also lexical, stylistic and systemic characteristics of lexemes. The paper demarcates the concepts of “descriptive dictionary” and “prescriptive dictionary”, considers their main characteristics. The basic positions of the synchronic-equivalent approach to the process of univerbalization, which is the basis of the analyzed dictionary, are presented. We argue the necessity of deducing complex abbreviated words as a separate object of dictionary description. The methodology of language material selection and its further lexicographic research is described. We consider how the above-mentioned aspects of lexeme description are combined in the structure of dictionary entries. It is established that the collection of wordlist follows the principles used in the creation of descriptive dictionaries. The description of linguistic material is carried out taking into account the normativity of abbreviations and their syntactic equivalents, which is characteristic of prescriptive dictionaries.