Noun Phrasal Entries in the EDR English Word Dictionary

The dictionary construction project at tile Japan Flectronic Dictionary Research Institute, Ltd. (El)R) in Tokyo began in 1986 and is ahnost certainly the largest lexicon construction project for computational purposes it] tile world. This paper describes some aspects of the construction of the English language dictionary, in particular a project to verify and enh,'mce information on noun phrases in the English Word Dictioniuy undertaken by the Computing Research Laboratory at New Mexico State University and the University of Sheffield. We believe the work so far raises issues of wider linguistic interest which require practical solutions so that the large scale lexicon project can proceed. We hope that this palter will show the complexity, diversity, attd richness of the content of the EI)R English Word Dictionary.