File: Read Me! Author: Paolo N.I.D. Matteucci E-mail: matteucci@dm.unito.it Date: October 17, 1996 Italian Dictionary for Excalibur 2.3 This file shortly describes the new features of the Italian Dictionary. Please read the WHOLE document before using the dictionary. MAIN FEATURES - The dictionary has been thoroughly corrected and revised. - It now contains corrected accented words (see the note below). - Some words have been added, especially from mathematics, physics and linguistics. NOTE ON ITALIAN ACCENTS As TeX 3.0+ allows the use of the extended character set, we have chosen to catalogue Italian accented words using Italian keyboard accented letters. In connection with this, only remark that accented i and u have been catalogued with ACUTE ACCENT, even though you can find only the corresponding `grave-accented' keys on your keyboard. This has been done in accordance with the finest Italian printings and with Italian language itself, since i and u are the CLOSEST anterior and posterior vowels, respectively. Therefore it would be a severe inconsistency to type, e.g., perch\'e (the e is ``only'' the SEMI-CLOSE anterior vowel), and cos\`{\i} with grave accent just like realt\`a, where the a is the MOST OPEN vowel (neither anterior nor posterior)... Anyhow, if you didn't know that, don't panic! You've got a Mac, don't you? It's quite easy to ``ResEdit'' your keyboard resource: if you don't know how, be sure a friend of yours does (indeed, if you do have an Italian keyboard, you've probably already reconfigured it for using special TeX symbols...). In case you're afraid or simply reluctant to do that, you can always create YOUR OWN modifiable dictionary and add THERE your (obscene) grave-accented variants (...accented i,u-words are so few!). NOTE ON ADDED WORDS It's impossible to mention all the words that have been added to the dictionary. Let's only make few remarks: 1. Words have been added by checking several papers on mathematics, physics, linguistics, philosophy and grapho-analysis written by friends, colleagues and relatives. New words have been attentively checked before being introduced in the dictionary. Too specialistic words have not been added. The dictionary was eventually checked by MS Word (TM). 2. Some words with optional accents have been added such as princ\'{\i}pi and pr\'{\i}ncipi (but also principi), s\'eguito and segu\'{\i}to (but also seguito), etc. As you can see, both variants have been catalogued, even though, according to certain rules, they aren't both necessary. But, as we are speaking of ``optional'' accents, we preferred to include both forms because in some context one meaning is less ``obvious'' than the other and so must be stressed by an accent, in some other context the converse is true. USE OF THE DICTIONARY The dictionary is ``read only''. Please add your new words to your personal dictionary. If you find some word which is missing and you do think is ``essential'' to the Italian language (but please read the note on the ``perfect dictionary'' below), send a message to the e-mail address above: it will be added in future releases. Also report any (real) error you find in the dictionary: it will be corrected with joy. -> For a correct spell-checking please also remember to check the Single quote marks end of word box in the Options/Word Boundaries menu!!! NOTE ON THE ``PERFECT DICTIONARY'' A (word cataloguing) ``perfect'' dictionary is not a comprehensive (Italian) Dictionary: it would be so only if it were clever at understanding the different contexts in which a word is used, if it could check all grammatical concords, etc. A ``good'' dictionary is simply a (not too large) set of ``common words'' which can be found in almost every context. It useless to catalogue some learned words such as sema (semanteme) if one doesn't deal with linguistics. It's more than useless: it's risky, because Excalibur will never correct them and, voil\`a: you'll get your wonderful ``sema'' when you just wanted to speak of a poor seme (seed)! So it's maybe better to create private monographic small dictionaries, than enlarging the main dictionary itself. TOTAL DISCLAIMER! Although the present dictionary should work considerably better than the previous one, the author disclaims all responsibility about errors deriving from a fault of detection due to any possible misprint in the Italian Dictionary. However, bug reports are welcome! Just send a message to the e-mail address above. Paolo N.I.D. Matteucci