Computer lexicography and compilation of electronic dictionaries

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The latest achievements of information technologies are mostly directed to the expansion of human opportunities in various fields of activity. Examination of automating different information processing procedures shows that now the creation of the special technologies allows using computer software opportunities in the field of the Russian lexicography and lexicology in the most optimal way.

In the center of this work there is the subject of lexicography as a science which makes numerous methods of compiling dictionaries worth considering. The dictionary can be presented as some kind of the universe organized in the alphabetical order and integrated in particular national cultures, customs, traditions, languages. Dictionaries are necessary not only when we don't know the meaning and spelling of this or that word, but they also are important and inseparable part of national culture [2].

Nowadays there have appeared a great number of different kinds of dictionaries. In Table 1 "Basic criteria for the classification and types of dictionaries" the various approaches to the typology of dictionaries are presented. It can be concluded that the universal classification of the dictionaries does not exist at all due to the fact that one and the same dictionary can be attributed to different types depending on the selected classification criterion (see Table 1).

Table 1. Basic criteria for the classification and types of dictionaries

Detailed explanatory dictionary fully reflects the human mind and association links between different concepts. When drawing up the classification of the vocabulary logical-conceptual modeling involves taking into account synonymous, and conditional equivalent antonymous and associative relationships [1].

So, macrostructure of bilingual English-Russian and Russian-English glossary can be presented in the form of thematic division, logical-conceptual schemes, alphabetic-cluster index, a two-channel input when searching in English or Russian languages, hypertext composition (see Figure) [6].

Figure 1. Model of bilingual glossary of electronic dictionary

It's generally known that the dictionary on the computer is the paper dictionary inserted into special programs and supplied with the most convenient means of information search and vocabulary display.

Computer lexicography is the special direction in a practical lexicography with own approaches not only to display, but also to contents of the dictionary. The electronic dictionary is a special lexicographic object in which many productive ideas, that weren't demanded for various reasons in paper dictionaries, can be realized and introduced into circulation [3].

At the present time, potential opportunities of computer lexicography have not been realized and implemented into practice yet.

There are certain contradictions and difficulties in application of traditional paper dictionaries to be considered.

1. The more the dictionary volume is, the more extensive and evidential the description of lexical meanings will be, and consequently, the more difficult the dictionary will be to use.

This contradiction result in the polarization of the market of paper dictionaries: there is a large group of popular editions, enough primitive, but rather convenient to handle. In practice, it is quite time-consuming and difficult to use volumetric professional publications each time when consulting the dictionary. As an example we can mention the 20-volume Oxford dictionary, providing with the meaning, pronunciation and etymology for more than half a million words and 2.4 million quotations [10].

2. The more complete and profound the description of lexical meanings is, the less the contents of the dictionary reflect the current language and cultural situation in the country. lexicography dictionary bilingual

Extremely long cycle of creation and modification of fundamental paper dictionaries leads to the fact that the image of the world which they fix in the system of the values, examples and the translations, but these values considerably differ from today`s reality. Many dictionaries in which the most of articles were created in the language atmosphere of the middle of the twentieth century contain obsolete vocabulary and historically and politically irrelevant data, notably if we could speak about specialized scientific dictionaries.

Unfortunately, modern scientific lexicographic projects are often realized in the form of the dictionaries which hardly cover 10% of all lexicographic space in a particular field. For instance, in well-known explanatory combinatorial dictionary under the editorship of A.I. Melchuk and A.K. Zholkovsky only less than 1000 lexical meanings of the Russian words were described [4].

Ample opportunities of computer lexicography exposition.

Computer implementation of the paper dictionary allows overcoming plenty of the specified problems. Among the new opportunities of the electronic dictionary are to be noticed:

1. Electronic dictionary can be characterized with more sophisticated opportunities of displaying vocabulary entries, including possibility of partial display by different criteria (various "projections" of the dictionary), various graphic means which are not used in usual dictionaries.

2. Access to the content of various linguistic technologies, such as morphological analysis and parsing, full text search, speech recognition and speech synthesis, etc.

From the point of view of unsophisticated user the purpose of implementing all these technologies in the electronic dictionary is to find as quickly as possible the required information which will be relevant to the search query and directly meet the inquiry, formulated by the user in the most convenient way [7].

In the traditional approach the minimum unit of the access to the dictionary is the lexeme or an entry name. To define the meaning of one lexeme it is necessary to read the whole dictionary article. For such kinds of dictionaries as Oxford, it may cause serious problems. For example, the verb Їto set? has 400 only denotative meaning in this dictionary, and many of them have connotative meanings [10].

Any user would like the dictionary to localize relevant information as much as possible.

For example, the beginning of vocabulary entry of the verb Їto set? taken from Lingvo Universal Dictionary ABBYY Linqvo Electronic Dictionary [9] has the following view (see Table 2):

Table 2. Vocabulary entry of the verb “to set”

So, there is a certain contradiction: between new language computer technologies and the old traditional dictionary contents which are not allowing using these technologies completely. In other words, the source of this contradiction is clear: the dictionary presents the language model arranged on entirely different principles, than traditional formal models of vocabulary, and this is the cornerstone for new technologies. And if in the field of morphology the contradiction is still not really essential, but in the field of syntax and semantics it becomes almost insuperable.

Really, the technology of the morphological analysis only allows establishing compliance between an initial form of the word from the text and a set of lexemes in dictionary entrances for which such form is possible. Parsing allows making the same for the phrases which are separate dictionary entrances.

However for all these technologies the dictionary contents are opaque and incomprehensible and only the full text search lets us look through the dictionary entries. This powerful tool works with dictionary contents in the same way as with the text in the natural language that sharply limits its opportunities [5].

The problem of compiling such kind of the dictionary contents which involves the analysis of a separate lexical meaning unit, but not morphological lexeme, seems to be the most perspective direction in computer lexicography. It is clear, that this decision requires special synchronization of the dictionary descriptions and formal models used by technologies of the analysis. As a result it has to be the uniform integrated lexico-syntactic-semantic description of the vocabulary in the electronic dictionary.

Widespread software including electronic dictionaries, can be characterized by frequent changes of versions and the availability of ongoing feedback from thousands of users. Therefore, computer lexicography is inevitably the most actual lexicography.

In the light of the ever-expanding interlingual contacts and cross-cultural communication at the turn of the second and third millennia the problems of lexicography become the matter of great importance [8]. All expanding technical capabilities facilitate the lexicographical theory and practice transition to a new advanced level. The automation of the work on the vocabulary and widespread access to the global networks result in the new goals of compiling and using the dictionaries that should meet the today`s requirements.

Список литературы

1. Апресян Ю.Д. Лексическая семантика. Синонимические средства языка. М.: Наука, 1974. 367 c.

2. Апресян Ю.Д., Медникова Э.М., Петрова А.В. и др. Новый большой англо-русский словарь: в 3-х т. Около 250 000 слов. / под общ. рук. Э.М. Медниковой и Ю.Д. Апресяна. М.: Рус. яз., 1993. 832 c.

3. Дарчук Н.П. Русско-украинско-английский электронный словарь лингвистической терминологии тезаурусного типа // Филологические науки. Вопросы теории и практики. Тамбов: Грамота, 2014. № 4-1 (34). С. 78-81.

4. Жолковский А.К., Мельчук И.А. и др. Толково-комбинаторный словарь современного русского языка. Опыты семантико-синтаксического описания русской лексики. Wien, Вена: Wiener Slavistischer Almanach,1984. 992 c.

5. Каменева Н.А. Использование компьютерного перевода как средства межкультурной коммуникации при обучении иностранным языкам // Филологические науки. Вопросы теории и практики. Тамбов: Грамота, 2014. № 4-1 (34). С. 99-102.

6. Каменева Н.А. Лексикографическое моделирование современной англоязычной терминологии в электронных словарях // Филологические науки. Вопросы теории и практики. Тамбов: Грамота, 2014. № 6-1 (36). С. 78-82.

7. Леонтьева Н.Н. Автоматическое понимание текстов: системы, модели, ресурсы: учеб. пособие для студентов лингвистических факультетов вузов. М.: Издательский центр « Академия», 2006. 304 с.

8. Хромов С.С. Современный звучащий дискурс в аспекте межкультурной коммуникации // Ярославский педагогический вестник. 2012. Т. 1. № 2. С. 161-165.

9. ABBYY Lingvo [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://www.abbyyonline.ru (дата обращения: 15.12.2014).

10. Oxford University Press [Электронный ресурс]. URL: http://ukcatalogue.oup.com/product/9780198611868.do (дата обращения: 15.12.2014).

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