The Definition, Presentation and Automatic Generation of Contextual Data in Lexicography

Abstract

This paper deals with several aspects of context in lexicography. Section 1 briefly mentions some different approaches to the concept context in various fields. Section 2 puts the focus on different uses and perceptions of the concept context in lexicography, contrasting it with related concepts, such as cotext, contextualization and contextual information. A more comprehensive discussion also covers different aspects of the occurrence of the concept context in dictionary research, with specific reference to central aspects of the so-called inner and outer context. Various portals, dictionaries and dictionary entries will illustrate the above-mentioned approaches. Section 3 approaches the subject from a user perspective. Section 4 addresses the question How can contextual data be extracted or generated? To answer this question, some methods and tools for (automatic) acquisition and analysis of contextual data, – in particular of the local contextual data in terms of Faber and León-Araúz (2016) – are introduced. Examples of these are lexical databases or semantic networks, like WordNet, and corpora, like Sketch Engine, or predictive methods, like Word2vec and similar ones. Some advantages and disadvantages of specific data acquisition tools used for the analysis of local contextual data are indicated. This section also contributes to a more detailed discussion of the automatic generation of the so-called local syntactic-semantic context or word environment, specifically of the building of syntactic-semantic argument patterns and their examples.