The Linguistic Basis of a Mechanical Thesaurus
Abstract
The grammar and lexis of a language exhibit a high degree of internal determination, affecting all utterances whether or not these are translated from another language. This may be exploited in a mechanical translation program in order to cope with the lack of translation equivalence between categories of different languages, by the ordering of elements into systems within which determination operates and the working out by descriptive linguistic methods of the criteria governing the choice among the elements ranged as terms in one system. Lexical items so ordered form a thesaurus, and the thesaurus series is the lexical analogue of the grammatical paradigm.
Fields of Study & Subjects
linguistics and terminology studies
Publication details
- Journal / source
- University of Toronto Press eBooks
- Publisher
- University of Toronto Press
- Volume
- 3
- Pages
- 61–73
- Publication date
- 26 May 2026
- Language
- EN
- Document type
- Book chapter