---
title: "Features in Lexicography for Arabic Dialects — Novospasskaya 2025"
description: "On this basis they propose a multimedia dictionary of the Syrian dialect built around a lexical network: a graph of vocabulary where each… 27 references."
authors: ["Natalia V. Novospasskaya", "Aida D. Haddad"]
year: 2025
venue: "RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics 16"
source: "https://journals.rudn.ru/semiotics-semantics/article/viewFile/48567/26264"
doi: "10.22363/2313-2299-2025-16-4-1272-1287"
licence: "CC BY-NC (journal licence per DOAJ; RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics)"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/novospasskaya-2025-features-lexicography-arabic-dialects-multimedia/"
---
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# Features in Lexicography for Arabic Dialects: Multimedia Dictionary of the Syrian Dialect

**Authors:** Natalia V. Novospasskaya and Aida D. Haddad · **Year:** 2025 · **Venue:** RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics 16 · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC (journal licence per DOAJ; RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics)](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-2299-2025-16-4-1272-1287) · [PDF](https://journals.rudn.ru/semiotics-semantics/article/viewFile/48567/26264) · [DOI 10.22363/2313-2299-2025-16-4-1272-1287](https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-2299-2025-16-4-1272-1287) · [OpenAlex](https://openalex.org/W7132827573)

**Citations:** 0 citations (OpenAlex, 2026-10-14)

## Summary
The paper addresses the difficulty of building lexical resources for Arabic dialects. Dialects overlap with codified literary Arabic, speakers code-switch, scholars disagree on how many varieties exist, and regional speech forms a continuum, so it is hard to tell which words are truly dialectal. The authors review scholarly work on the Syrian dialect and comparative dialect studies. They find that research focuses mostly on phonetics, word formation and the verb system, while vocabulary is treated only piecemeal. Comparative work also lacks shared criteria for choosing which dialects to compare. They survey digital tools for Arabic dialects, including resources that "normalize" dialect text into literary form. On this basis they propose a multimedia dictionary of the Syrian dialect built around a lexical network: a graph of vocabulary where each type of word relation is drawn with its own kind of line. The contribution is a resource design rather than a measured result. It matters because there are few systematic records of dialect vocabulary and pronunciation, and such records support both research and preservation.

## Key points
- The authors distinguish three interacting varieties: literary Arabic (Quranic plus modern standard), a colloquial koine understood across regions, and local regional dialects.
- The literature review finds no systematic method for describing a dialect as a whole system. Phonetic and grammatical studies dominate, and lexical work appears mainly in comparative studies.
- Syriac/Aramaic left a substrate in Syrian Arabic. Evidence includes place-name elements such as kafr, dayr and maara, and Syriac still survives in Jabdin, Bahaa and Maaloula.
- The planned dictionary is multimedia, recording sound as well as phonetic and grammatical features. It builds on a lexical network with relations of equivalence, antonymy and motivating–motivated (derivational) links.
- The work was funded by RUDN grant project No 050225-0-000.

## Interesting ideas
- A dictionary entry can be treated as a node in a typed graph, with equivalence, antonymy and derivational ("motivating–motivated") edges kept distinct, instead of as a flat list of glosses.
- Dialect-to-standard "normalization" tools treat a nonstandard variety as something to map onto a codified norm, while keeping a record of what was changed.
- The paper does not treat language varieties as a binary of high versus low. It recognizes a middle colloquial layer that mixes standard words with small phonetic or grammatical changes, which explains why classifying a single form is often ambiguous.
- Substrate evidence, such as Syriac-origin place-name elements, is gathered into a table as a reusable lexical class. This shows that toponym components carry recoverable etymological and type information.

## For Mova

How these ideas could serve Mova, our small open language model — its files, stages and tests:

- **I1** (world): The compiled lexicon under the world model could store derivational links (e.g., verb → agent noun) as explicit typed edges next to WordNet relations, so inferences across related words can be explained edge by edge.
- **I2** (tree): The same idea fits UD dialect conversion and informal English input: normalize to a standard form before parsing, but keep an alignment back to the original tokens so every parse decision stays traceable.
- **I3** (tokens): The tagger and lemmatizer could label forms with a register or variety attribute, including an "in-between" value, so informal spellings are lemmatized to standard entries without being treated as errors.
- **I4** (world): Common place-name elements (e.g., -ford, -burgh, Mount) could be compiled as cues that an unknown capitalized word is a location, giving the entity typer an explainable rule.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

## Institutions

Also on the byline: [Peoples' Friendship University of Russia](https://ror.org/02dn9h927).

📚 Shelves (1): [🗣️ Linguistics & languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/linguistics/) · 4,876 works · 20,420.2

🧭 Topics (1): [🐪 Semitic languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/semitic-languages/) · 1,334 works · 2,090.4

## Cite

Cite as: Natalia V. Novospasskaya and Aida D. Haddad. 2025. Features in Lexicography for Arabic Dialects: Multimedia Dictionary of the Syrian Dialect. RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics 16.

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@article{novospasskaya2025features,
  title = {{Features in Lexicography for Arabic Dialects: Multimedia Dictionary of the Syrian Dialect}},
  author = {Natalia V. Novospasskaya and Aida D. Haddad},
  journal = {RUDN Journal of Language Studies, Semiotics and Semantics 16},
  year = {2025},
  doi = {10.22363/2313-2299-2025-16-4-1272-1287},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.22363/2313-2299-2025-16-4-1272-1287}
}
```

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- [↑ back to papers of 2025](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/2025/page/4/)

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27 references, 2 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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27. Alnosairee, A., & Sartini, N. (2021). A Sociolinguistics Study in Arabic Dialects. PRASASTI: Journal of Linguistics, 6(1). https://doi.org/10.20961/prasasti.v6i1.43127 Information about the authors: Natalia V. Novospasskaya, PhD in Philology, Associated Professor, Associated Professor at the General and Russian Linguistics Department, Faculty of Philology, RUDN University (6 Miklukho-Maklaya Str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 117198); Research interests: terminology, lexicography, typological linguistics; e-mail: novospasskaya_nv@pfur.ru ORCID: 0000-0001-7599-0246; SPIN-code: 1362-1820, AuthorID: 397500; Scopus Author ID: 57219297279; ResearcherIDX-8769-2019. Aida D. Haddad, PhD student in Philology, assistant at the General and Russian Linguistics Department, Faculty of Philology, RUDN University (6 Miklukho-Maklaya Str., Moscow, Russian Federation, 117198); Research interests: dialectology, Arabic language, lexicography, typological linguistics; e-mail: khaddad_a@pfur.ru ORCID: 0000-0002-7765-2133; SPIN-code: 1601-8469, AuthorID: 1156296. Сведения об авторах: Новоспасская Наталья Викторовна, кандидат филологических наук, доцент, доцент кафедры общего и русского языкознания, Россиийский университет дружбы народов (117198, Российская Федерация, г. Москва, ул. Миклухо-Маклая, д. 6); сфера научных интересов: терминология, лексикография, типологическое языкознание; e-mail: novospasskaya_nv@ pfur.ru ORCID: 0000-0001-7599-0246; SPIN-код: 1362-1820, AuthorID: 397500; Scopus Author ID: 57219297279; ResearcherIDX-8769-2019. Хаддад Аида Джихадовна, кандидат филологических наук, ассистент кафедры общего и русского языкознания филологического факультета, Российский университет дружбы народов (117198, Российская Федерация, г. Москва, ул. Миклухо-Маклая, д. 6); сфера научных интересов: диалектология, арабский язык, лексикография, типологическое языкознание; e-mail: khaddad_a@pfur.ru ORCID: 0009-0009-5295-0802; SPIN-код: 1601-8469, AuthorID: 1156296. [↗](https://doi.org/10.20961/prasasti.v6i1.43127) [our card](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/alnosairee-2021-sociolinguistics-study-arabic-dialects/)