A terminological hyperlexicon

A hyperlexicon is defined as a collection of lexical objects represented as nodes in a hypergraph, with the links representing lexical relations. In a hyperlexicon, a number of indexing (and corresponding navigation) schemata can be introduced in order to provide a variety of perspectives on the lexical objects represented in the hypergraph, corresponding to onomasiological or semasiological structural criteria.

A number of issues point towards applying the criterion of re-usability to documentation and publications in the spoken language area, and for this reason an approach is developed for re-using the text and terminological resources already developed in EAGLES Phase I by the SLWG.

In view of the complexities involved -- and the very large number of degrees of freedom -- a pragmatic approach is taken in the development of the EAGLET concept. The approach involves developing a macromodel for spoken language terminology based on the macrostructure of the Parts and Chapters of the Handbook of Standards and Resources for Spoken Language Systems. For this purpose, the following textual components of the Handbook will be incorporated into a hypergraph design for a terminological hyperlexicon:

1. Table of contents (TOC). The TOC represents a possible onomasiological structure for the content, and provides an elementary variety of onomasiological indices into the text.
2. Body of text. The body of the handbook provides expert-developed contexts in which terminology is authentically attested; the body of text in the chapters therefore defines an authentic corpus of attested forms in context.
3. Glossary. The Glossary is effectively a semasiological dictionary with headword and definitions, usually of the genus proximum et differentia specifica type.
4. Index. The Index indirectly provides a semasiological concordance, with headword and pointers into corpus of attested forms in context.