General methodology

From pluralism of languages to multilingalism

The general dynamics of project GENELEX is to design models for computational dictionaries of the languages it deals with in a separate manner (although in close cooperation). Once a sufficient level of specification has been obtained in these languages (i.e. for the time being French, Portuguese, Italian, Spanish, and, to a lesser extent, English), GENELEX will proceed with a search for general convergence and with a more precise definition of the multilingual dimension.

Generality of Format

The issue involved in the development of GENELEX(GENEric LEXicon) is the generality of its format, which covers the following aspects:

1. maximum coverage: to take into account, for a given data entry, the maximum amount of non-redundant linguistic information. Information that can be deduced systematically from other linguistic information will not be recorded. In addition, the information to be recorded must not be limited by the needs of specific applications.
2. maximum portability: to be able to support various types of implementations, the model must be a conceptual and not a physical model of data. GENELEX pursues exactly the same objectives as the Text Encoding Initiative. The realization of the GENELEX conceptual data model was therefore conceived independently of physical models, permitting GENELEX partners to choose different physical models for the implementation of GENELEX dictionaries.
3. minimum discrimination: there is a need for the model to remain as independent as possible of a particular linguistic theory. For this reason, the linguistic aspect has been reduced to accommodate the needs of all users, who may then, with formal rules of translation and/or deduction, find the information of interest in a GENELEX dictionary.
4. linguistic realism: GENELEX partners attempted to avoid as much as possible to establish constraints on the completeness an electronic lexicon must reach to be declared in conformity with the specification, being conscious that there is still a long way to go before complete and generic lexica are available. The objective of GENELEX is thus a double one:
   • allowing convergence of various existing lexical assets into a common conceptual structure
   • enhancing harmonious developments towards generic and complete lexica by expressing methodological guidelines
   The stress put on methodological guidelines leads GENELEX to pay a great attention to explicitation of the meta-linguistic features of the model. There are therefore two main types of components in this model:
   • a level for linguistic description, that lists pieces of information ('features') to be attached to lexical entities and defines relations between such entities
   • a level for explicit and analytic description of the features themselves, that can be inter-related, structured, organized into hierarchies, refined by the means of more atomic values, etc.

Formalisms

Nevertheless, GENELEX offers a means of checking the conformity of a given set of lexical data to the model it recommends. The conceptual model is expressed:

• through the entity/relationship formalism, despite of its limits, in order to grant a better communication between partners and to allow a synthetic graphical representation of the model ;
• through an SGML Document Type Definition (DTD) that may serve as a formal specification of the model, and as a format for the interchange of data, which may be checked by an SGML Parser. Large sets of lexical data produced by GENELEX partners have already gone through such controls w.r.t. morphological as well as to syntactical information .