In this contribution, basic concepts and methods of computational lexicography are introduced as background to the other more specialised papers. First, a conventional terminological framework for defining the microstructures and macrostructures of lexica is introduced. Second, aspects of the contemporary discussion of lexical representation are dealt with, including the view of a lexicon as a theory of basic units of language, lexical formalisms, and inheritance approaches in which lexical microstructures and macrostructures are intertwined. Third, practical procedures for creating computational lexica for spoken language are treated, including types of lexical entry, microstructure elements and representations which are characteristic of spoken language. A brief overview of practical UNIX text processing techniques for lexicography is given, concluded by a look at open questions and current developments, particularly in the area of hyperlexica.
There are very many treatises on traditional and computational lexicography; some of these will be referred to during the discussion. The selections of papers in [Boguraev & Briscoe 1989, ] are fairly representative of established methods in the field, and tutorially-oriented publications on specific aspects of computational lexicography and related fields are readily available; these include [Butler 1992, , , ]. For a traditional view on lexicography, note [Landau 1989, ].
There are also very many research and development projects both about new methods in computational lexicography, and on creating lexicographic resources. The reader interested in getting hands-on experience quickly is therefore advised to extract relevant lexicographic terms from this introduction and search the Web for further details (including software tools, lexical database resources, definitions of technical terms such as `SGML', `XML', `DATR', `relational database') with a search engine such as AltaVista, Lycos, Yahoo. Particularly useful sources to pick out on the Web are the European Language Resources Association (ELRA) and the Linguistic Data Consortium (LDC), as well as the information provided by the ELSNET group.