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Browsing the Terminological Structure of a Specialized Domain: A Method Based on Lexical Functions and their Classification

This paper describes a method for browsing relations between terms and unveiling the terminological structure of a specialized domain. The method consists in expanding a graph that takes as input the relations encoded in a multilingual terminological resource called the DiCoEnviro that contains terms in the field of the environment. In the DiCoEnviro, terminological relations are encoded using lexical functions (Melčuk et al. 1995) and further classified in families defined on the basis of the properties of relations. We seek to provide users with an explicit and intuitive representation of a wide variety of relations. We also make the most of the richness of the encoding, while implementing some graphical choices to make their interpretation as clear as possible for end users. The method is implemented in a tool called NeoVisual that provides access to more than 11,000 relations in English and 15,000 relations in French. Portuguese is also included and coverage in all languages will increase as new entries are added to the DiCoEnviro.