Explanatory combinatorial dictionary

The ECD was proposed in the late 1960s by Aleksandr Žolkovskij and Igor Mel'čuk and was later further developed by Jurij Apresjan. Three ECDs are currently available in print, one for Russian, and two for French. A dictionary of Spanish collocations—DICE (= Diccionario de colocaciones del español)—is under development.

Characteristics of an ECD

A complete ECD of a language would provide an entry for every lexeme, construction, or idiom—referred to collectively as "Lexical Units" (LUs)—in use in the language. Entries in the ECD are based on the semantic definition of an LU, and each entry contains a complete list of its collocations and lexical functions as well.

Entries for historically-related Lexical Units which are homophones and share significant semantic component (i.e., meanings) are grouped into larger units called "vocables," thereby acknowledging polysemy while maintaining the distinct status of the independent items in question. The English vocable improve, for example, includes six Lexical Units, each of which is provided a separate lexical entry:

IMPROVE, verb

IMPROVEI.1a X improves ≡ ‘The value or the quality of X becomes higher’

[The weather suddenly improved; The system will improve over time]

IMPROVEI.1b X improves Y ≡ ‘X causes₁ that Y improvesI.1a’

[The most recent changes drastically improved the system]

IMPROVEI.2 X improves ≡ ‘The health of a sick person X improvesI.1a’

[Jim is steadily improving]

IMPROVEI.3 X improves at Y ≡ ‘X’s execution of Y improvesI.1a, which is caused₁ by X’s having practiced or practicing Y’

[Jim is steadily improving at algebra]

IMPROVEII X improves Y by Z-ing ≡ ‘X voluntarily causes₂ that the market value of a piece of real estate Y becomes higher by doing Z-ing to Y’

[Jim improved his house by installing indoor plumbing]

IMPROVEIII X improves upon Y ≡ ‘X creates a new Y´ by improvingI.1b Y’

[Jim has drastically improved upon Patrick’s translation]

The lexicographic numbers (given in bold after the entry word) reflect degrees or levels of semantic distance between Lexical Units within a vocable: Roman numerals mark the highest-level semantic groupings, while Arabic numerals mark the next highest level, and letters indicate the lowest level distances. The four lexemes grouped under IMPROVEI, for example, are considered to be closer to each other than to IMPROVEII or IMPROVEIII, because the meanings of each of IMPROVEI.1b and IMPROVEI.2 actually include the meaning of IMPROVEI.1a. IMPROVEI.1a and IMPROVEI.1b are even more closely related because in English there are many pairs of words—specifically, labile or ambitransitive verbs—that are related by the semantic alternation ’P’ ~ ‘cause₁ to P’ (as per above, ‘improve’ ~ ‘cause to improve’).

The subscript and superscript numbers attached to words in the definition refer to subsenses (subscripts) and homophonous entries (superscripts) for a word as given in the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English —thus, “device₁¹” refers to the first entry for device in this dictionary, first subsense.