Data Structures in Lexicography: from Trees to Graphs

MĚCHURA, Michal. Data Structures in Lexicography: from Trees to Graphs. In Aleš Horák, Pavel Rychlý, Adam Rambousek. Proceedings of Recent Advances in Slavonic Natural Language Processing, RASLAN 2016. Brno: Tribun EU, 2016, p. 97-104. ISBN 978-80-263-1095-2.

Basic information

• Original name: Data Structures in Lexicography: from Trees to Graphs
• Name in Czech: Datové struktury v lexikografii: od stromů ke grafům
• Authors: MĚCHURA, Michal (203 Czech Republic, guarantor, belonging to the institution).
• Edition: Brno, Proceedings of Recent Advances in Slavonic Natural Language Processing, RASLAN 2016, p. 97-104, 8 pp. 2016.
• Publisher: Tribun EU

Other information

• Original language: English
• Type of outcome: Proceedings paper
• Field of Study: 10201 Computer sciences, information science, bioinformatics
• Country of publisher: Czech Republic
• Confidentiality degree: is not subject to a state or trade secret
• Publication form: printed version "print"
• WWW: URL
• RIV identification code: RIV/00216224:14330/16:00092269
• Organization unit: Faculty of Informatics
• ISBN: 978-80-263-1095-2
• ISSN: 2336-4289
• UT WoS: 000466886400011
• Keywords in English: e-lexicography; dictionary writing systems; placement of multi-word items in dictionaries; bilingual dictionary reversal
• Tags: International impact, Reviewed

Abstract

In lexicography, a dictionary entry is typically encoded in XML as a tree: a hierarchical data structure of parent-child relations where every element has at most one parent. This choice of data structure makes some aspects of the lexicographer’s work unnecessarily difficult, from deciding where to place multi-word items to reversing an entire bilingual dictionary. This paper proposes that these and other notorious areas of difficulty can be made easier by remodelling dictionaries as graphs rather than trees. However, unlike other authors who have proposed a radical departure from tree structures and whose proposals have remained largely unimplemented, this paper proposes a conservative compromise in which existing tree structures become augmented with specific types of inter-entry relations designed to solve specific problems.