Advanced Encoding for Multilingual Access in a Terminological Data Base – A Matter of Balance

This paper describes new functionalities implemented in a terminological database (TDB) in order to allow efficient editing of and access to multilingual data. The functionalities are original in the sense that they allow users of the database to retrieve the equivalents not only of headwords, but also of semantically related terms (especially collocations) that appear within the articles. The methods we developed are based on a formal encoding of lexical relationships, namely lexical functions (LFs). Since they are language-independent and are designed to capture semantic distinctions, links between equivalents can be established automatically.