Abstract

This article briefly outlines the current state of Italian lexicography currently undergoing a period of particular productivity. At the base of the present-day wide production of lexicographic tools is probably the sense of linguistic insecurity caused by the state of rapid evolution of the Italian language. But the emergence of new data filing tools is also fundamental. Thus, almost all dictionaries are now accompanied by their CDROM versions with resulting research potential. New electronic dictionaries are created, especially in the field of terminologies, while increasingly wider collections of on-line texts are now available. However, this development in the field of documentation does not bring into discussion the usefulness of traditional dictionaries: some of their characteristics - such as the semantic classification of all listed words, their definition and the selection of their most interesting contexts - endow pure documentation with an interpretative key of individual lexical units of which the non-specialist user has great need.