Semasiological structured termbanks

 In most cases monolingual termbanks in a semasiological structure are of glossary type, consisting of more or less independent terms (Schmitz et al., 1994, see). The potential user is someone seeking for information on a concept, a definition and probably the usage of the term. Beginners in a subject field also use this kind of termbank to approach the field of interest and find references to different material and sources. Though this usergroup is not in the primary focus it should not be neglected. Monolingual termbanks are closer to the actual usage of terms than bi- or multilingual termbanks because they can also be written by people without skills in other languages, especially subject field specialists can write such a termbank without any mediator such as a translator. The list of categories  for a termbank can include:

• definition 
• superordinate terms 
• subordinate terms 
• synonyms 
• antonyms 
• related terms 
• classification for super- and subordinate terms (generic hierarchy,  ontologic hierarchy,  ), see 1.3.1.3.
• domain 
• subdomain classification
• morphological information 
• grammatical information  (part of speech, inflection, transitiveness, countability, )
• examples  (graphic-,  audio-,  video examples,  models,  formulas,  )
• pronunciation  (transcription, audio example)
• inventor of the term
• source of the term
• information on the definition (source, author) 
• bibliography for the term or/and the example
• etymology 
• technical information (author of the term entry, date of entry, date and person of the last change, date and person of evaluation, etc.)
• notes
• classification of the term (abbreviation,  full form,  accepted,  deprecated,  prefered,  archaic,  colloquial,  formal, local usage, company use)
• context (context examples, context references)

This list is not complete, and there is probably no termbank including all these categories, but most termbanks made have at least categories for the definition and another one for the source of the definition, super- and subordinate terms, the domain of the concept, some technical information, and some grammatical information.

Thorsten Trippel
Fri May 21 13:04:11 MET DST 1999