Building a Large Lexicon with Lexical Network Theory

In this paper I present a number of studies of individual lexical items demonstrating the incredible variety of idiosyncratic properties that occur in the lexicon of English. While many current theories ignore this level of detail, I argue that a complete on-line lexicon suitable for a variety of linguistic and computational uses must include much more information than is available in any existing dictionary. I present a formalism, Lexical Network Theory (LNT) which helps deal with the complexity by capturing generalizations both about individual word senses and about the relations or links between word senses. In addition, a methodology for building lexical networks is proposed. This methodology manages the interaction between the lexicographer, a large corpus of word uses, and the evolving lexical net so that the complexity of the net can be used as an asset to suggest interpretations for each new word, rather than as a liability that overwhelms the lexicographer by