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Towards machine-readable lexicons for South African Bantu languages

Lexical information for South African Bantu languages is not readily available in the form of machine-readable lexicons. At present the availability of lexical information is restricted to a variety of paper dictionaries. These dictionaries display considerable diversity in the organisation and representation of data. In order to proceed towards the development of reusable and suitably standardised machine-readable lexicons for these languages, a data model for lexical entries becomes a prerequisite. In this study the general purpose model as developed by Bell & Bird (2000) is used as a point of departure. Firstly, the extent to which the Bell & Bird (2000) data model may be applied to and modified for the above-mentioned languages is investigated. Initial investigations indicate that modification of this data model is necessary to make provision for the specific requirements of lexical entries in these languages. Secondly, a data model in the form of an XML DTD for the languages in question, based on our findings regarding (Bell & Bird, 2000) and (Weber, 2002) is presented. Included in this model are additional particular requirements for complete and appropriate representation of linguistic information as identified in the study of available paper dictionnaries.