Words and their collocations: value and problems of meanings in lexicographic research

This paper stems from doctoral research work aimed at launching an Italian-Persian digital dictionary. In the construction of a bilingual dictionary, different levels of linguistic competence are essential. For each single headword, it is first of all necessary to precisely define its use in the context of the source language, with its different meanings: for this purpose, substantial lexicographic tools are necessary (for the current research, T. De Mauro, Nuovo vocabolario di base della lingua italiana, 2016, and T. De Mauro, Grande dizionario italiano dell’uso, 2006-7). In the target language, after the definition of the main translation equivalents (with the help of bilingual and monolingual dictionaries: in this case mainly A. Coletti, H. Coletti Grünbaum, Dizionario persiano-italiano. Nuova edizione rivista e aggiornata, 2021; H. Anvari, Farhang-e bozorg-e soxan, 2002), it is necessary to broaden the perspective to the meanings of these equivalents. This is a complex task, as these equivalents may in turn have a wide range of different meanings according to different contexts. Tracing the relevant phraseology – a fundamental tool of the dictionary – will help define the boundaries of this second lexical constellation, allowing for the establishment of inclusions and exclusions, particularly by exploring the presence of headwords in the literary field of the target language. In this paper, the following words will be examined as case studies: abbassare, alzare, vuoto, showing their use according to their different meanings in the context of contemporary Persian literature (short stories, novels, poems).