In the Tchourama-French Dictionary, words are presented with additional
information bundled together into the main entry.
The basic elements in the main entry are as follows:
(1) The headword is displayed in bold. Nouns are given in the singular form.
Verbs are given in the base form.
(2) Other forms of words are shown in parentheses.
For nouns, there will be the plural form. For verbs, there will be two derived
forms of the base form. For adjectives within classes, there will be seven different forms of each one.
(3) The abbreviation for the grammatical category, for example, v. (verb), adj. (adjective).
(4) The various meanings of the given word will be numbered (a,b,c, etc.).
Subentries will be shown under the main entry to illustrate certain figurative expressions, called idiomatic expressions. The subentries are indicated by the diamond symbol as in example 2.
Expressions such as "nũɔ̃gɩ dɩsɩ" are shown under the main entry of the first word. In the second word we have added a reference to the first word of the expression as in example 3.
Examples sentences are given to illustrate the differences of meanings of a word as in
example 4.
Homonyms are indicated by the numbers 1, 2, 3 etc.
following the main word as in example 5.
Certain verbs are not complete without the
postposition -nã. This is used for direct transitive verbs.
To help the reader notice this grammatical distinction, these verbs
are marked as in example 6.
Certain verbs are complete if they have the preposition
nǝ̃. These verbs are maked in example 7.
Borrowed words from Dioula, French, or Arabic are marked
as in example 8.
Synonyms and antonyms are indicated as in example 9.
Some of the animal names are labeled with the generic class
to which the animal belongs according to the Tchouraphones.
N.B. This study is a trial. See example 10.
With the goal of rendering the dictionary more interesting,
we have added some references as in example 11.