Problems forming bijective lexica

There are lexical phenomena that make it difficult to construct injective and surjective lexica, which results also in problems forming the wanted bijective lexica:

• polysemy and homonymy: Two or more concepts share the same term (maybe surjective but not injective) (see figure 2.5). This problem does hardly ever occur in restricted contexts of one domain. The inclusion of domain properties might solve redundancy.
• synonyms: Two or more terms denote the same concept (maybe surjective but not injective) (see figure 2.6). It is arguable if this phenomenon exists; some linguists claim that so-called synonyms are only partial synonyms.
• lexical gaps: Not every concept has an assigned term (injective but not surjective) (see figure 2.7). Nevertheless, lexical gaps can be filled if necessary by inventing new terms.

However, the length of this paper allows only to point to possible solutions; it is not possible to discuss them in detail.

 
Figure 2.5: Polysemic relation  

 
Figure 2.6: Synonymic relation  

 
Figure 2.7: Lexical gaps  

Thorsten Trippel Tue Nov 16 15:01:58 MET 1999