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<Paper uid="C94-1044">
  <Title>Interlingual Lexical Organisation for Multilingual Lexical Databases in NADIA</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="0" end_page="279" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
1. The dictionaries
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> A MLI)B consists of two kinds of diclionarics: lhc monolingual dictionaries and the acception dictionary.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> 1,1, Monoli~ dielionarics The monolingual dictionaries arc accessible by entries. These entries are le,mnas (&amp;quot;normal form&amp;quot; of words, e.g. in Snglish, infinilivc lk~r verbs, singt, lar for nouns, etc.). Items of the monolingual dictionaries (monolingual acceptions) are generally accepted meanings of words or expressions, as wc can find them in standard printed dictiona,'ics. These monolingnal acccplions arc combined with their linguistic inlbrnmtion.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Monolingual acceptious of a language L arc acccptions that are connected to a word or an expression of L. Such an acccption can be accessed from one (or mo,'e) entries. 1.2, Ace.option dicdonm2~ The interlingual diclio,mry, called acc(v~tion C/lictionaty, contains interlingual acctT)timzs. Some inlkwnnalion c\[in be linked to these intcrlingu:fl acceptions.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> In a MLI)B composed of n monolingual dictiouaries, the set of intcrlingual acccplions is equal Io the uuinn of the sets of monolingual acceptions of the n dictionaries, with an equality relation bound to the semantic identity.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Some contrastivc problems may appear when two monolingual acceptious of two different languages are semantically slightly different. This appears when there is a non-direct translation of a word (e.g. 'river' can be translated in French by 'rivibre' or by Tleuvc 'l ). This kind of problem is solved by a relation from acceplion to subacception which is prc-defincd in all NADIA lcxical databases: the contrastivc relation. It is intended to code contras|ive problems induced by a non-direct translation, it 1 A 'rivibre' is a ralher small river fl(~wlng into annlher river. A 'fleuve' is a large river flowing into the ,see.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5">  /'7&amp;quot;'\ / ....... .':,,,o\ Fig. |: illustration of the acception-based lexical organization iS not inlended lo code any kind of ontological itffonnalion.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> 2. I,exical organizati(m In the acception-based lexical organization, the monolingual acceptions and the interlingual acccplions must satisfy the lbllowing criteria: 2,1. Well-formcdness crileria , Each interIingual acctTtion correspomls to at &amp;ast one monoIingual acception. This criterion slates that an interlingual acccption must correspond to at least one entry of one language (as ntonolingual acceptions).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> * An interliagual acception corresponds to at most one monolingual acception of the same language.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> An interlingual aeception is not necess'~rily connected to a mcmolingual acccption of each language of the MLDB.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> * A monolingual acception corresponds to one and only one interlingual acceptiom A monolingual acception is always related to an intcrliugual acception and (as stated by the preceding criterion) is one-one.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> 2.2. Translation criteria * Two monolingual acceptions ofdiffi~rent languages  correspond to a unique interlingual acception if, and only if they have the same meaning. This criterion sta~es the semantic identity of two monolingttal acceplions of different langtmgcs (provided that they correspond to the same interlingual acception) allowing the use of the interlingual dictionary for lexieal translation purposes.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> * If entry el of language TA is translated by entry e2 in language L2 via a non-dh'ect equivalence, the corresponding interlingual acception must be linked by the conm~stive relation or by a relalion of quasisynonymy. This criterion allows the use of the acception dictionary for lexical translalion purposes even when there is no direct translation.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> II. Experimentation l. The Parax mock-up In order to experiment this lexical organizatio,t, 1;:. Blanc has built the Parax mock-up (Sdrasset and Blanc 1993). This mock-np is a small acceplion-based lexical database of 5 languages (Fmglish, French, German, I~.ttssian, Chinese).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> Parax, produced on Macinlosh with IlypcrCard TM, was designed to experiment prol~letns inherent to the acception-based lexieal organization, llence, items of the monoliugual diclionaries are combined with rather simple linguistic information.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="14"> An enlry of a monolingual dictiotmry is linked Io several acceplions. These acceptions arc provided with their linguistic information (lcfl c(flumn in fig. 2). l:.ach of these monolingual acceptions is related to an interlingual acccption along with its (lefinition (in French) and s0me scmanlic infonnation (right eoltnnn in fig. 2).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15">  To accede to the acceplion dictionary, Ihe user selects an acception in the middle column. The acception is displayed ahmg with its sul~-aceeptions (middle column of fig. 3). From Ihis point, it is possible Io gel a translation by selecting a target langtmge for one of the acceptions. The lranslation appears in Ihe right eohnnn of fig. 3 (which shows the German translation of the acception). In Ihe acception~ SOURCE: franCois #~pouser_semnrier$ CIBLE: nllemnnd I affbmenus  ~pou~er 1 &amp;quot;*~p0u3erJemurier$ SENS:I.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="16"> ~.,~.t~o.q.~.~,r.~ ~..m.~.r.i.e.r.$...L&amp;c.,..~.&amp;N..LE g ............ prendre pour 6p.0ux, ~p0uae~ 3e marier avec ,.(Ze e~:~.~..~.~e2...,'..~ ........................ ............... ~.~. ~.u..~.~.r.. ~ ~..,. ~,.~.r:i. ~.r.. l~.h.~..m.....m..~..* R.u.... ................ ~...m..~.r.i~.r....~.~.r...~.C/.b.o.mm~.L..L': ................. ............... ~.~. ~.u.~.e.r ~.e..!~.r.i.~r.l~.m..m. ~..~.RU...,. .~r...~.~.d.~.L.{ ~.~,~,.,.q..qe,..f~.~.m.~Z...t.~ ................................ ................ ~.Et~ .u ~.~.r~ ~.m.&lt;r. j...e,.r.l..r...e.t~.C/ ~ A..X.. ........ * IF -i&amp;quot; hei raien a&amp;quot;E pouae r.,Je m~rie r $ SENS:I.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="17">  example given, there is no direct equiv:dence from l:rench to Russian as Russian introduces a distinction on the gender of the subject. To get the Russian translation, we have to select one of the sub-acceptions. Then, we can get '&gt;getlrrrrr,C/&gt;l ' for fl man or '3aMyx'-: ', 'aaMym (gblflTI |- as)' or ~3,t~MyIK(~M '* for a woman.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="3" start_page="279" end_page="279" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
2. Indexing methodology
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> 2.1. Indexing in Parax As the platform we used for this mock-up was not specialized for such a task, we have used an indexing methodology lbr the construction of this MLI)B. The starting point of onr work was a smaU French corpus we wanted to index, llence, we begau to index French words and for each created acceptions, we gave a translation in the other languages.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> After creating an entry, the lexicographer gives its different word-senses ,and their linked linguistic information (the kind of information depends on the language of the entry).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Then, the lexicographer links the word senses to an interlingual acception. As lhe number of acceplions is still small, it is possible to select an ,already existing aeception by browsing directly in the acception dictionary. If the searched aceeption does not exist, it is created along with a definition in French and some semantic inlk)rmation.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> 2.2. General c, ~'ls.~ When developing a lmge scale MLI)B, it is no longer possible to select existing interlingual acceptions by directly browsing through the acceptiou dictionary.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Moreover, the different dictionaries will have to be iudexed by different lexicographers. 11encc, it is necessary to define another methodology.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> The process of creation of an entry and its monolingual acceptions does not change. AftEr creating an enlry, Ihe lexicographer selects a possible translation for the considered acception in a language of the database. If this translation is already indexed in the target language, he selects the corresponding acception in the target dictionary. The source and target monolingual aeceptions are automatically linked to the same inlerlingual acception. If the translation is not ah'eady indexed in the target language, the lexicographer indexes it (partially) and asks the person in charge of the target dictionary to complete the new entry.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> The acception dictionary is thus constructed and managed by the system and the lexicographers work in more or less the s,-une way as when indexing bilingual dictionaries. This automatic management of the interlingual dictionary involves the automatic verification of the criteria defined abxwe.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> When a problem is detected the system attaches a w,-u-ning for the lexicographer in charge of the acception dictionary, m~d proposes a default solution.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="279" end_page="279" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
3. Some results
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The corpus we wanted to index in the Parax mock-up consisted of 135 entries in French corresponding to a representative set of verbs, nouns, adjectives, and adverbs of gener:d vocabulary. We have indexed these entries and the related aeceptions. As we sutrted the indexation with q French corlms, only some of the entries in the other languages have been given all their acceptions.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> The distribution of the entries and aeceplions of the different languages is the lollowiag:  This represents a total of 589 interlingual acccptions. Among these intcrlingual aeceptions, 58 are subacceptious introduced by contr,'t~tive problen~s. The size of this mock-up is of the same order as that of Multilcx.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> III. Current work Our current work consists in the dcfiniti(m and prototyping of a specialized management system for acceplion based MLI)FIs.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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