This thesis is an investigation of the use of inheritance networks to construct a multilingual lexicon in which information can be shared at several levels of linguistic description - morphology, phonology, syntax, etc. It aims to provide an insight into methodological and theoretical issues involved in the development of such lexicons, in particular: • The regulation of the inter- and intralanguage inheritance relations That is, how does the hierarchical structure of one language interact with the hierarchical structure between the languages? • Multilingual information sharing Which information can and should be shared in a multilingual inheritance network and how is it shared? • Development strategies How does one go about constructing a multilingual inheritance lexicon? Should the monolingual and multilingual hierarchical lexicons be developed in parallel and linked immediately upon construction or should a non-parallel development strategy be adopted, where the monolingual lexicons are first fully developed separately and only linked together at the end. This thesis explores these issues by comparing different architectures for multilingual inheritance lexicons following Evans' (1996) proposals. A parameterised approach, in which language is used as a parameter, is contrasted with a nonparameterised approach by implementing sample fragments in DATR (Evans and Gazdar, 1996). The sample fragments focus on the sharing of morphological, phonological, and morphophonological similarities and cover a small set of nouns and adjectives in Dutch, English, Danish, and Icelandic.
| Identifer | oai:union.ndltd.org:bl.uk/oai:ethos.bl.uk:392872 |
| Date | January 2001 |
| Creators | Tiberius, Carola Petra Adrienne |
| Publisher | University of Brighton |
| Source Sets | Ethos UK |
| Detected Language | English |
| Type | Electronic Thesis or Dissertation |
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