Moving to dynamic computational lexicons with LeXFlow

In this paper we present LeXFlow, a web application framework where lexicons already expressed in standardised format semiautomatically interact by reciprocally enriching themselves. LeXFlow is intended for, on the one hand, paving the way to the development of dynamic multi-source lexicons; and on the other, for fostering the adoption of standards. Borrowing from techniques used in the domain of document workflows, we model the activity of lexicon management as a particular case of workflow instance, where lexical entries move across agents and become dynamically updated. To this end, we have designed a lexical flow (LF) corresponding to the scenario where an entry of a lexicon A becomes enriched via basically two steps. First, by virtue of being mapped onto a corresponding entry belonging to a lexicon B, the entry(LA) inherits the semantic relations available in lexicon B. Second, by resorting to an automatic application that acquires information about semantic relations from corpora, the relations acquired are integrated into the entry and proposed to the human encoder. As a result of the lexical flow, in addition, for each starting lexical entry(LA) mapped onto a corresponding entry(LB) the flow produces a new entry representing the merging of the original two.