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Description
This paper focuses on the lexicographic treatment of multifunctional function words in the emerging Upper Sorbian Czech dictionary Mudra 2.0. As Upper Sorbian lexicography remains strongly dependent on German and lacks a monolingual explanatory dictionary, the compilation of bilingual Upper Sorbian “non German” dictionaries poses specific methodological challenges. These are particularly evident in the treatment of expressions with predominantly grammatical or pragmatic functions, such as conjunctions, modal words, and intensifiers. These expressions are often characterised by polysemy and multifunctionality resulting from grammaticalization processes, and their meanings are highly context dependent. The treatment of these expressions in monolingual dictionaries has been inconsistent so far, whereas in bilingual dictionaries it is typically limited to providing translation equivalents. In this paper, we discuss the various possibilities and limitations of lexicographic descriptions of function words in the context of the minority language. Through a case study of the Upper Sorbian expressions docyła (‘completely’) and cyle (‘quite’), we analyse their semantic and pragmatic properties in comparison to their equivalents in Czech and German. Based on this analysis, we present the lexicographic approach adopted in the dictionary, including sample entries.