Considerations regarding the presentation of grammatical words in the print versions of corpus-based English learners' dictionaries

This presentation discusses whether, and to what extent, closed-class lexical items should be included in corpus-based EFL monolingual dictionaries, or to be more precise, in the print versions of those dictionaries written for advanced learners. The argumentation starts from the general observation that space is at a premium in the dictionaries being considered, and that, for this reason it is worth considering whether any items or data typically included in such dictionaries might be removed without lowering the quality of the product. The freeing of unwanted space would allow visual presentation to be improved in whatever way thought most suitable. A consideration of what type of material might be omitted from the dictionary leads to two possible areas or approaches. The first is that of lexical items or data which learners should be very familiar with. It is worth pointing out in this respect that, although the intended readership of the dictionaries consists above all of fairly advanced learners, dictionary compilers presuppose virtually nothing as regards the lexical and lexico-grammatical knowledge of the learners concerned, apart from the knowledge they must have to understand definitions and examples.The second approach is to consider which items learners probably do not look up in the dictionary. This area will overlap to a considerable extent with the first