Design Issues in Athabaskan Dictionaries

Abstract

Athabaskan (Dene) verbs present two main problems for the lexicographer. First, in their most basic form, verbs are often discontinuous, an unpronounceable, non-word object. Secondly, the headword of the verb is the final syllable of the verb. In this article I survey a variety of published and unpublished dictionaries of Athabaskan languages, presenting and critiquing the different choices that have been made with respect to the representation of discontinuity and headword choice.