In a series of studies using semantic relatedness judgment response times, Jiang (2000, 2002, 2004a) has claimed that L2 lexical entries fossilize with their equivalent L1 content or something very close to it. In another study using a more productive test of lexical knowledge (Jiang 2004b), however, the evidence for this conclusion was less clear. The present study is a partial replication of Jiang (2004b) with Japanese learners of English. The aims of the study are to investigate the influence of the first language (L1) on second language (L2) lexical knowledge, to investigate whether lexical knowledge displays frequency-related, emergent properties, and to investigate the influence of the L1 on the acquisition of L2 word pairs that have a common L1 equivalent. Data from a sentence completion task was completed by 244 participants, who were shown sentence contexts in which they chose between L2 word pairs sharing a common equivalent in the students' first language, Japanese. The data were analyzed using the statistical analyses available in the programming environment R to quantify the participants' ability to discriminate between synonymous and non-synonymous use of these L2 word pairs. The results showed a strong bias against synonymy for all word pairs; the participants tended to make a distinction between the two synonymous items by assigning each word a distinct meaning. With the non-synonymous items, lemma frequency was closely related to the participants' success in choosing the correct word in the word pair. In addition, lemma frequency and the degree of similarity between the words in the word pair were closely related to the participants' overall knowledge of the non-synonymous meanings of the vocabulary items. The results suggest that the participants had a stronger preference for non-synonymous options than for the synonymous option. This suggests that the learners might have adopted a one-word, one-meaning learning strategy (Willis, 1998). The reasonably strong relationship between several of the usage-based statistics and the item measures from R suggest that with exposure learners are better able to use words in ways that are similar to native speakers of English, to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate contexts and to recognize the boundary separating semantic overlap and semantic uniqueness. Lexical similarity appears to play a secondary role, in combination with frequency, in learners' ability to differentiate between appropriate and inappropriate contexts when using L2 word pairs that have a single translation in the L1. / CITE/Language Arts

Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec l'Université Paris Diderot (Paris 7) / Cette thèse porte sur l’élaboration d’un modèle de structuration des relations lexicales, fondé sur les fonctions lexicales de la Théorie Sens-Texte [Mel’cuk, 1997]. Les relations lexicales considérées sont les dérivations sémantiques et les collocations telles qu’elles sont définies dans le cadre de la Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire [Mel’cuk et al., 1995]. En partant du constat que ces relations lexicales ne sont pas décrites ni présentées de façon satisfaisante dans les bases de données lexicales, nous posons la nécessité d’en créer un modèle de structuration. Nous justifions l’intérêt de créer un système de fonctions lexicales puis détaillons les quatre perspectives du système que nous avons mises au point : une perspective sémantique, une perspective axée sur la combinatoire des éléments d’une relation lexicale, une perspective centrée sur leurs parties du discours, ainsi qu’une perspective mettant en avant l’élément sur lequel se focalise la relation. Le système intègre l’ensemble des fonctions lexicales, y compris les fonctions lexicales non standard, dont nous proposons une normalisation de l’encodage. Le système a été implémenté dans la base de données lexicale du DiCo. Nous présentons trois applications dans lesquelles il peut être exploité. Premièrement, il est possible d’en dériver des interfaces de consultation pour les bases de données lexicales de type DiCo. Le système peut également être directement consulté en tant qu’assistant à l’encodage des relations lexicales. Enfin, il sert de référence pour effectuer un certain nombre de calculs sur les informations lexicographiques, qui pourront, par la suite, être implémentés pour automatiser la rédaction de certains champs de fiches lexicographiques. / This thesis proposes a model for structuring lexical relations, based on the concept of lexical functions (LFs) proposed in Meaning-Text Theory [Mel’cuk, 1997]. The lexical relations taken into account include semantic derivations and collocations as defined within this theoretical framework, known as Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology [Mel’cuk et al., 1995]. Considering the assumption that lexical relations are neither encoded nor made available in lexical databases in an entirely satisfactory manner, we assume the necessity of designing a new model for structuring them. First of all, we justify the relevance of devising a system of lexical functions rather than a simple classification. Next, we present the four perspectives developped in the system: a semantic perspective, a combinatorial one, another one targetting the parts of speech of the elements involved in a lexical relation, and, finally, a last one emphasizing which element of the relation is focused on. This system covers all LFs, even non-standard ones, for which we have proposed a normalization of the encoding. Our system has already been implemented into the DiCo relational database. We propose three further applications that can be developed from it. First, it can be used to build browsing interfaces for lexical databases such as the DiCo. It can also be directly consulted as a tool to assist lexicographers in encoding lexical relations by means of lexical functions. Finally, it constitutes a reference to compute lexicographic information which will, in future work, be implemented in order to automatically fill in some fields within the entries in lexical databases.

Cette thèse porte sur l’élaboration d’un modèle de structuration des relations lexicales, fondé sur les fonctions lexicales de la Théorie Sens-Texte [Mel’cuk, 1997]. Les relations lexicales considérées sont les dérivations sémantiques et les collocations telles qu’elles sont définies dans le cadre de la Lexicologie Explicative et Combinatoire [Mel’cuk et al., 1995]. En partant du constat que ces relations lexicales ne sont pas décrites ni présentées de façon satisfaisante dans les bases de données lexicales, nous posons la nécessité d’en créer un modèle de structuration. Nous justifions l’intérêt de créer un système de fonctions lexicales puis détaillons les quatre perspectives du système que nous avons mises au point : une perspective sémantique, une perspective axée sur la combinatoire des éléments d’une relation lexicale, une perspective centrée sur leurs parties du discours, ainsi qu’une perspective mettant en avant l’élément sur lequel se focalise la relation. Le système intègre l’ensemble des fonctions lexicales, y compris les fonctions lexicales non standard, dont nous proposons une normalisation de l’encodage. Le système a été implémenté dans la base de données lexicale du DiCo. Nous présentons trois applications dans lesquelles il peut être exploité. Premièrement, il est possible d’en dériver des interfaces de consultation pour les bases de données lexicales de type DiCo. Le système peut également être directement consulté en tant qu’assistant à l’encodage des relations lexicales. Enfin, il sert de référence pour effectuer un certain nombre de calculs sur les informations lexicographiques, qui pourront, par la suite, être implémentés pour automatiser la rédaction de certains champs de fiches lexicographiques. / This thesis proposes a model for structuring lexical relations, based on the concept of lexical functions (LFs) proposed in Meaning-Text Theory [Mel’cuk, 1997]. The lexical relations taken into account include semantic derivations and collocations as defined within this theoretical framework, known as Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology [Mel’cuk et al., 1995]. Considering the assumption that lexical relations are neither encoded nor made available in lexical databases in an entirely satisfactory manner, we assume the necessity of designing a new model for structuring them. First of all, we justify the relevance of devising a system of lexical functions rather than a simple classification. Next, we present the four perspectives developped in the system: a semantic perspective, a combinatorial one, another one targetting the parts of speech of the elements involved in a lexical relation, and, finally, a last one emphasizing which element of the relation is focused on. This system covers all LFs, even non-standard ones, for which we have proposed a normalization of the encoding. Our system has already been implemented into the DiCo relational database. We propose three further applications that can be developed from it. First, it can be used to build browsing interfaces for lexical databases such as the DiCo. It can also be directly consulted as a tool to assist lexicographers in encoding lexical relations by means of lexical functions. Finally, it constitutes a reference to compute lexicographic information which will, in future work, be implemented in order to automatically fill in some fields within the entries in lexical databases. / Thèse réalisée en cotutelle avec l'Université Paris Diderot (Paris 7)

A comunicação multilíngue é uma tarefa cada vez mais imperativa no cenário atual de grande disseminação de informações em diversas línguas. Nesse contexto, são de grande relevância os sistemas de tradução automática, que auxiliam tal comunicação, automatizando-a. Apesar de ser uma área de pesquisa bastante antiga, a Tradução Automática ainda apresenta muitos problemas. Um dos principais problemas é a ambigüidade lexical, ou seja, a necessidade de escolha de uma palavra, na língua alvo, para traduzir uma palavra da língua fonte quando há várias opções de tradução. Esse problema se mostra ainda mais complexo quando são identificadas apenas variações de sentido nas opções de tradução. Ele é denominado, nesse caso, \"ambigüidade lexical de sentido\". Várias abordagens têm sido propostas para a desambiguação lexical de sentido, mas elas são, em geral, monolíngues (para o inglês) e independentes de aplicação. Além disso, apresentam limitações no que diz respeito às fontes de conhecimento que podem ser exploradas. Em se tratando da língua portuguesa, em especial, não há pesquisas significativas voltadas para a resolução desse problema. O objetivo deste trabalho é a proposta e desenvolvimento de uma nova abordagem de desambiguação lexical de sentido, voltada especificamente para a tradução automática, que segue uma metodologia híbrida (baseada em conhecimento e em córpus) e utiliza um formalismo relacional para a representação de vários tipos de conhecimentos e de exemplos de desambiguação, por meio da técnica de Programação Lógica Indutiva. Experimentos diversos mostraram que a abordagem proposta supera abordagens alternativas para a desambiguação multilíngue e apresenta desempenho superior ou comparável ao do estado da arte em desambiguação monolíngue. Adicionalmente, tal abordagem se mostrou efetiva como mecanismo auxiliar para a escolha lexical na tradução automática estatística / Crosslingual communication has become a very imperative task in the current scenario with the increasing amount of information dissemination in several languages. In this context, machine translation systems, which can facilitate such communication by providing automatic translations, are of great importance. Although research in Machine Translation dates back to the 1950\'s, the area still has many problems. One of the main problems is that of lexical ambiguity, that is, the need for lexical choice when translating a source language word that has several translation options in the target language. This problem is even more complex when only sense variations are found in the translation options, a problem named \"sense ambiguity\". Several approaches have been proposed for word sense disambiguation, but they are in general monolingual (for English) and application-independent. Moreover, they have limitations regarding the types of knowledge sources that can be exploited. Particularly, there is no significant research aiming to word sense disambiguation involving Portuguese. The goal of this PhD work is the proposal and development of a novel approach for word sense disambiguation which is specifically designed for machine translation, follows a hybrid methodology (knowledge and corpus-based), and employs a relational formalism to represent various kinds of knowledge sources and disambiguation examples, by using Inductive Logic Programming. Several experiments have shown that the proposed approach overcomes alternative approaches in multilingual disambiguation and achieves higher or comparable results to the state of the art in monolingual disambiguation. Additionally, the approach has shown to effectively assist lexical choice in a statistical machine translation system

Submitted by Marlene Santos (marlene.bc.ufg@gmail.com) on 2014-10-15T18:53:56Z No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao - Luana Duarte Silva - 2013.pdf: 8245905 bytes, checksum: 3d8ceff541366775c1faf5e8f4bd1589 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Approved for entry into archive by Jaqueline Silva (jtas29@gmail.com) on 2014-10-16T17:35:36Z (GMT) No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao - Luana Duarte Silva - 2013.pdf: 8245905 bytes, checksum: 3d8ceff541366775c1faf5e8f4bd1589 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) / Made available in DSpace on 2014-10-16T17:35:36Z (GMT). No. of bitstreams: 2 Dissertaçao - Luana Duarte Silva - 2013.pdf: 8245905 bytes, checksum: 3d8ceff541366775c1faf5e8f4bd1589 (MD5) license_rdf: 23148 bytes, checksum: 9da0b6dfac957114c6a7714714b86306 (MD5) Previous issue date: 2013-07-17 / This research is a philological and lexical, in that from the facsimile edition of the manuscripts of the books of Commitment of Black Fraternities "Arraỹal de Bomfim Comarca de Goỹaz”, current city Silvânia-GO, and of "São Joaquim de Cocal", which was on the border with Tocantins, perform editing semidiplomatic these documents under the apparatus of the standards suggested in Megale and Toledo Neto (2005). Then, from the perspective of lexical Biderman (1981, 1986, 2001), Vilela (1995), among others, inventoried the lexis that particularize these two black communities of the eighteenth century. Thus, the inventory was extended to nouns, adjectives, adjectival phrases, since the aim is not to investigate a whole class of words, but what the lexical unit can load direction regarding Brotherhoods. Then, based on considerations of field lexicon Coseriu (1977) and Geckeler (1976), we organized the data into lexical fields in order to relate them according to the composition of each section. In the analysis of the field, we understand how black associations were organized, what the purposes of its creation, as well as their relationship with the Church and the Crown, institutions that allow their creation, regulating them. Grounded the discussions about the history and culture expressed in the lexical items of Black Fraternities of Goiás, authors such as Russell-Wood (2005), Loyola (2009), Borges (2005), among others, in addition to the dictionaries of the time as Bluteau (1712-1728) Moraes and Silva (1813). This support aimed to clarify the lexis typical of their context of use and of that time, who currently may have won an extension of meaning, or fallen into disuse. / Esta pesquisa é de natureza filológica e lexical, na medida em que a partir da edição fac-símile dos manuscritos dos livros de Compromisso das Irmandades de pretos de “Arraỹal de Bomfim Comarca de Goỹaz”, atual cidade de Silvânia-GO, e de “São Joaquim de Cocal”, que ficava na divisa com Tocantins, realizamos a edição semidiplomática desses documentos sob o aparato das normas sugeridas em Megale e Toledo Neto (2005). Depois, sob a perspectiva léxica de Biderman (1981, 1986, 2001), Vilela (1995), entre outros, inventariamos as lexias que particularizam essas duas comunidades de pretos do século XVIII. Desta feita, a inventariação se estendeu a substantivos, adjetivos, locuções adjetivas, já que o objetivo não é investigar toda uma classe de palavras, mas o que a unidade lexical pode carregar de sentido referente às Irmandades. Em seguida, tomando por base as considerações sobre campo léxico de Coseriu (1977) e Geckeler (1976), organizamos os dados em campos lexicais, a fim de relacioná-los conforme a composição de cada seção. Na análise dos campos, compreendemos como as associações de pretos eram organizadas, quais as finalidades de sua criação, bem como sua relação com a Igreja e a Coroa, instituições que permitem sua criação, regulamentando-as. Fundamentaram as discussões sobre a história e a cultura expressas nos itens léxicos das Irmandades de pretos de Goiás, autores como Russell-Wood (2005), Loiola (2009), Borges (2005), entre outros, além dos dicionários da época, como Bluteau (17121728) e Moraes Silva (1813). Este suporte teve a finalidade de esclarecer as lexias próprias daquele contexto de uso e daquela época, que atualmente podem ter ganhado uma extensão de sentido, ou entrado em desuso.

<p>The aim of this Magister Degree Project has been to investigate if can corpora be used to investigate patterns of lexical distribution and/or borrowing from one variety to another. Another aim has been to investigate how well classification of lexical items as either “British” or “American” supported by evidence from corpora of English.</p><p>In order to accomplish these aims sets of lexical items have been examined in two ways: first through dictionary research and “dictionary dating”, and second through the use of such English corpora as the British National Corpus (BNC), the United Kingdom Web Archiving Consortium (ukWaC), and the TIME Corpus of American English. The results of this research suggest that the simplistic labelling of certain items as “American” versus “British” is sometimes misleading, and that corpus investigations on their own, though useful, may not be entirely sufficient in this context.</p>

Nous cherchons dans ce travail à mieux saisir la construction de la compétence lexicale chez de jeunes collégiens. Notre propos prend appui sur des recherches en sémantique lexicale et en didactique du lexique qui prônent l'étude du rôle de la dimension syntagmatique du lexique dans l'analyse lexicale. Nous faisons l'hypothèse qu'un enseignement du lexique axé sur l'étude explicite de la structure du co-texte des unités lexicales peut favoriser la construction de la compétence lexicale. Nous proposons une réflexion didactique basée sur les approches intégratives de la lexicologie contemporaine. Nous revenons sur le concept de compétence pour proposer notre propre définition de la compétence lexicale, objet de notre recherche. Nous délimitons le co-texte qui est pour nous constitué des co-occurrents fréquents, employés dans la même phrase que l'unité lexicale étudiée. Dans une perspective didactique, nous proposons ensuite une structuration grammaticale du co-texte.À partir de ce cadre, notre protocole consiste à tester un dispositif didactique envisageant l'enseignement organisé et systématique du lexique. Nous testons ce dispositif dans deux classes de 6ème (11-12 ans). Dans une classe l'enseignement explicite de la structure du co-texte est proposée, tandis que dans l'autre sont pratiqués divers exercices extraits de manuels scolaires. Nous évaluons au terme d'une année scolaire en classe de 5ème l'impact de cet enseignement sur le développement de la compétence lexicale. L'analyse montre que les sujets qui ont bénéficié d'un enseignement explicite de la structure du co-texte ont eu tendance à s'appuyer davantage que les autres sur le co-texte pour leur calcul du sens. Les résultats obtenus au terme d'une année suggèrent que l'étude explicite de la structure du co-texte entraine des effets à un double niveau. D'une part, les élèves s'approprient une nouvelle stratégie d'interprétation des unités lexicales, cet exercice de métacognition leur permet ainsi de mieux comprendre le fonctionnement du système pour contrôler l'inférence, et de développer par là leur compétence lexicale. D'autre part, l'enseignant approfondit aussi sa connaissance de l'organisation du lexique, ce qui favorise l'intégration des structures sémantiques, morphologiques et syntagmatiques en didactique du lexique. Au regard de ces résultats et dans le cadre de la formation d'enseignants, nous présentons alors des pistes didactiques concrètes d'enseignement du lexique. / We seek in this research to better understand the construction of the lexical competency in young pupils. Our purpose is based on research in lexical semantics and in didactic that advocates the study of the role of the syntagmatic dimension of the lexicon in lexical analysis. We assume that vocabulary teaching focusing on the explicit study of the structure of the co-text of lexical units can encourage the construction of the lexical competency. We propose a didactic reflection based on integrative approaches of contemporary lexicology. We study the concept of competency in order to propose our own definition of the lexical competency, the subject of our research. We describe the co-text that is done, for us, of the frequent co-occurrence used in the same sentence as the unit studied. In a didactic perspective, we then propose a grammatical structuration of the co-text.From this framework, our protocol our protocol consists in testing a didactic device considering an organized and systematic teaching of the lexicon. We test this device in two 6th grade classes (11-12 years). In one class, the explicit teaching of the co-text structure is proposed, while in the other class various exercises taken from textbooks are practiced. We evaluate at the end of a school year, in the 5th grade class, the impact of this teaching on the development of the lexical competency. The analysis shows the subjects who received explicit instruction of the co-text's structure tended to rely on the co-text more than the others in their search of sense. The results obtained after a year lead us to consider that the explicit study of the co-text structure causes effects on two levels. On the one hand, the pupils use a new strategy for interpreting the lexical units, this exercise of metacognition allows them to better understand the functioning of the system in order to control the inference, and thus develop their lexical competency. On the other hand, the teacher also deepened his knowledge of the organization of the lexicon, which promotes the integration of the semantic, morphological and syntagmatic structures. In view of these results, and as part of teacher training, we present consequently concrete didactic courses of teaching lexicon.

Une observation attentive des pratiques langagières des Mostaganémois permet de constater que le français – tant à l’oral qu’à l’ecrit – qu’ils emploient spontanément constitue une variété à part entière. Si les travaux d’inspiration ethnographique ou sociolinguistique sur le phénomène de contact de langues en Algérie sont très nombreux, on ne dispose pas, à l’heure actuelle, de description précise et détaillée permettant d’élaborer un dictionnaire des faits qui résultent de ce contact de langues dans la région de Mostaganem.Ayant pu consttituer un corpus d’étude, composé pour l’essentiel d’enregistrements d’échanges spontanés ainsi que de photographies numériques commerciales, je me propose d’en entreprendre une analyse linguistique dont voici les grandes lignes.Les particularités du « français mostaganémois » sont, tout d’abord, d’ordre phonétique. L’examen du corpus visera à dégager les constantes dans la modification de la prononciation, en raisonnant en termes de variantes libres (opposées aux variantes combinatoires). On s’intéressera également aux particularités graphiques observées dans le corpus, pour tenter de mettre au jour, là encore, les régularités dans la relation entre graphies et sons.Les faits discursifs réunis dans le corpus seront étudiés sous un autre angle : il s’agira de faire apparaître les particularités du « français mostaganémois » sur le plan du lexique et de la morphosyntaxe. Ce volet comportera notamment le phénomène d’emprunt, de calque et de mélange codique, avec une attention particulière accordée aux modalités d’intégration des entités dans le système de la langue d’accueil.Il a été constaté de tout temps que les communautés d’origine étrangère vivant ou ayant cotoyé, par le passé, un pays d’accueil comme l’Algérie, sont susceptibles d’apporter des contributions linguistiques avec une influence certaine sur la pratique langagière des natifs. Il est vraisemblable que le poids numérique d’une communauté joue un rôle prépondérant dans l’influence linguistique. Il est également vraisemblable qu’un phénomène de « néologie lexicale et d’emprunt » soit lié à la forte présence française. Beaucoup de mots d’origine française sont constamment annexés dans la nomenclature algérienne à travers, notamment les pratiques linguistiques quotidiennes (usage) et les documents officiels, tels que les dictionnaires bilingues, les manuels scolaires, la littérature maghrébine d’expression française (statut). Aussi peut-on s’interroger à propos des facteurs déterminants cette annexion, est-ce : l’attitude des ainés, davantage scolarisé en langue française, qui fait qu’on reste attaché à cette langue et qu’on perpétue la pratiquer au quotidein ? Les revendications d’ordre social qui génèrent une récurrence dans l’expression de la langue pratiquée par les locuteurs ? Le rôle des mas médias destinés à cette communauté ? La fréquence des problèmes rencontrés par les jeunes de ladite communauté étant entendue que la dynamisation linguistique est boostée par la tranche jeune de la population ? L’impact du langage en circulation dans les mariages mixtes ? Le côtoiement communautaire dans les établissements d’enseignement public ? Le brassage de population dû à un constant ballet de visites françaises ?Notre problématique traitera du lexique d’origine française, intégré dans le dialecte arabe de la ville de Mostaganem avec la mise en relief du hiatus qui existe entre la pratique langagière quotidienne (usage courant) et l’intégration officieuse dans la nomenclature de l’arabe parlé (usage règlementé par les faits sociaux). Cette problématique définira également la répartition du lexique d’origine française dans les différents domaines d’usage de la vie des locuteurs mostaganémois. / Careful observation of the language practices of Mostaganémois shows that the French - both oral as in writing - they spontaneously use is a variety in itself. If the sociolinguistic or ethnographic work on the inspiration in Algeria language contact phenomenon are numerous, there is not, at present, a precise and detailed description for developing a dictionary of facts that result from this language contact in the Mostaganem region.Having been consttituer a corpus of study, consisting essentially of spontaneous exchanges recordings and commercial digital photographs, I intend to undertake a linguistic analysis of which here are the highlights.The peculiarities of the "French mostaganémois" are, first, phonetic order. The corpus of the review will aim to identify the constants in changing the pronunciation, reasoning in terms of free variants (as opposed to combinatorial variants). It will also focus on graphics features observed in the corpus, to try to bring to light again, patterns in the relationship between sounds and spellings.Discursive facts gathered in the corpus will be considered from another angle: it will show the characteristics of the "French mostaganémois" in terms of vocabulary and morphosyntax. This component will include especially the borrowing phenomenon layer and code-mixing, with special attention given to entities of integration arrangements in the system of the host language.It was found always that the foreign communities living or having rubbed the past, a host country like Algeria, are likely to bring linguistic contributions with some influence on the language practice native. It is likely that the numerical strength of a community plays a major role in the linguistic influence. It is also likely that a phenomenon of "lexical neologisms and borrowing" is linked to the strong French presence. Many words of French origin are constantly accompanying the Algerian nomenclature, particularly through everyday linguistic practices (use) and official documents, such as bilingual dictionaries, textbooks, North African literature in French (status) . So we can wonder about the determinants annexation, is the attitude of the elders, more schooled in French, which we remain committed to this language and that perpetuates the practice quotidein ? The claims of social order which generate a recurrence in the expression of the language used by the speakers? The role of media mas for this community? The frequency of the problems faced by young people of that community being understood that language revitalization is boosted by the younger segment of the population? The impact of outstanding language in mixed marriages? Community côtoiement in public schools? The population mixing due to a constant ballet of French visits?Our problem will address the lexicon of French origin, integrated in the Arabic dialect of the city of Mostaganem with highlighting the discrepancy between the daily language practice (current use) and informal integration in the nomenclature of the Arab spoken (regulated use by social facts). This issue will also define the distribution of the lexicon of French origin in the different areas of use of the life of mostaganémois speakers.

The aim of this Magister Degree Project has been to investigate if can corpora be used to investigate patterns of lexical distribution and/or borrowing from one variety to another. Another aim has been to investigate how well classification of lexical items as either “British” or “American” supported by evidence from corpora of English. In order to accomplish these aims sets of lexical items have been examined in two ways: first through dictionary research and “dictionary dating”, and second through the use of such English corpora as the British National Corpus (BNC), the United Kingdom Web Archiving Consortium (ukWaC), and the TIME Corpus of American English. The results of this research suggest that the simplistic labelling of certain items as “American” versus “British” is sometimes misleading, and that corpus investigations on their own, though useful, may not be entirely sufficient in this context.

A comunicação multilíngue é uma tarefa cada vez mais imperativa no cenário atual de grande disseminação de informações em diversas línguas. Nesse contexto, são de grande relevância os sistemas de tradução automática, que auxiliam tal comunicação, automatizando-a. Apesar de ser uma área de pesquisa bastante antiga, a Tradução Automática ainda apresenta muitos problemas. Um dos principais problemas é a ambigüidade lexical, ou seja, a necessidade de escolha de uma palavra, na língua alvo, para traduzir uma palavra da língua fonte quando há várias opções de tradução. Esse problema se mostra ainda mais complexo quando são identificadas apenas variações de sentido nas opções de tradução. Ele é denominado, nesse caso, \"ambigüidade lexical de sentido\". Várias abordagens têm sido propostas para a desambiguação lexical de sentido, mas elas são, em geral, monolíngues (para o inglês) e independentes de aplicação. Além disso, apresentam limitações no que diz respeito às fontes de conhecimento que podem ser exploradas. Em se tratando da língua portuguesa, em especial, não há pesquisas significativas voltadas para a resolução desse problema. O objetivo deste trabalho é a proposta e desenvolvimento de uma nova abordagem de desambiguação lexical de sentido, voltada especificamente para a tradução automática, que segue uma metodologia híbrida (baseada em conhecimento e em córpus) e utiliza um formalismo relacional para a representação de vários tipos de conhecimentos e de exemplos de desambiguação, por meio da técnica de Programação Lógica Indutiva. Experimentos diversos mostraram que a abordagem proposta supera abordagens alternativas para a desambiguação multilíngue e apresenta desempenho superior ou comparável ao do estado da arte em desambiguação monolíngue. Adicionalmente, tal abordagem se mostrou efetiva como mecanismo auxiliar para a escolha lexical na tradução automática estatística / Crosslingual communication has become a very imperative task in the current scenario with the increasing amount of information dissemination in several languages. In this context, machine translation systems, which can facilitate such communication by providing automatic translations, are of great importance. Although research in Machine Translation dates back to the 1950\'s, the area still has many problems. One of the main problems is that of lexical ambiguity, that is, the need for lexical choice when translating a source language word that has several translation options in the target language. This problem is even more complex when only sense variations are found in the translation options, a problem named \"sense ambiguity\". Several approaches have been proposed for word sense disambiguation, but they are in general monolingual (for English) and application-independent. Moreover, they have limitations regarding the types of knowledge sources that can be exploited. Particularly, there is no significant research aiming to word sense disambiguation involving Portuguese. The goal of this PhD work is the proposal and development of a novel approach for word sense disambiguation which is specifically designed for machine translation, follows a hybrid methodology (knowledge and corpus-based), and employs a relational formalism to represent various kinds of knowledge sources and disambiguation examples, by using Inductive Logic Programming. Several experiments have shown that the proposed approach overcomes alternative approaches in multilingual disambiguation and achieves higher or comparable results to the state of the art in monolingual disambiguation. Additionally, the approach has shown to effectively assist lexical choice in a statistical machine translation system