Dictionary Entries explained

 

Headwords

Each entry starts with a headword (a lexical unit of a morpheme, a word, or a group of words) in the Arabic based Balochi script followed by a pronunciation guide in the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA) using a broad and phonemic transcription, marked by square brackets, e.g., [baloːʧ].

Part of speech

In each entry, the pronunciation guide is followed by its part of speech in abbreviated form that is marked by italics, e.g., adj., n., v., etc. For the headwords which function in more than one grammatical category, for example, as a noun and a verb, each category is marked with numerals and left sided brackets, e.g., (1, (2, etc.

Definitions

The definitions of Balochi lexical units are given in Balochi, English and Urdu are usually substitutable. The definition of each lexical unit starts with the part of speech and is followed by the meaning. As mentioned above, many lexical units have more than one part of speech. In addition many lexical units will also have more than one sense (polysemy). Each sense will be marked with numerals in left-sided parentheses, e.g., (1, (2, (3, etc. The sub-senses within a sense are separated by semicolons. Words which are identical in pronunciation and spelling but differ with basic meanings (homonyms) are treated as separate entries with subscripts.

Spelling variations

Various words in Balochi literature are written with different spellings. The variant spellings for such words are presented in parentheses, for example, (var. of xxx).

Illustrative Sentences

In order to explain the meanings of complex words, illustrative examples are given in Balochi and translated into English and Urdu. These illustrative sentences are given in a separate line along with a Bullitt (•) symbol. With a slight modification, most of the examples have been taken from the text corpus. As a native speaker, I also created some examples when helpful.

Usage Labels

One usage label is used (so far) in this dictionary. Some of the body parts are taboo in Balochi and is better to be marked with the usage label of Taboo. Usage labels follow the definitions in the entry and are marked with curved brackets, e.g., {tab}.