The lexicon of Chilean Spanish: Dictionary of Chilean Spanish usage

Abstract

There is no cultural patrimony more important than the language of a national community. A dialectal dictionary is a work of great social significance. Even if one does not want it, it always gets a normative value. For the user, its definitions amount to an undebatable truth. More so if it has been produced by a prestigious entity and is indorsed by important cultural institutions. The DUECh is the latest inventory of this kind. This article discusses some of its criteria for selecting lemmas. Collection by means of some surveys is put to test: vocabulary of social and political life, verbal phrases, procedures for the creation of neologisms (acronyms, N+N and N+ Adj. appositions, V+N compounds). Some of the partially or totally debatable definitions are analyzed and other meanings, homonyms and variants are proposed.