A Formal Model of Dictionary Structure and Content

TL;DR

This paper presents a formal model of dictionary structure that aligns with typical entries, demonstrating its implementation in XML and using XSLT for flexible information extraction and manipulation.

Contribution

It introduces a formal, hierarchical model of dictionary content that can be mapped to XML and manipulated with XSLT, enabling versatile semantic processing.

Findings

Model conforms to typical dictionary hierarchy

XML mapping facilitates data exchange and processing

XSLT enables flexible information extraction

Abstract

We show that a general model of lexical information conforms to an abstract model that reflects the hierarchy of information found in a typical dictionary entry. We show that this model can be mapped into a well-formed XML document, and how the XSL transformation language can be used to implement a semantics defined over the abstract model to enable extraction and manipulation of the information in any format.