ITRI-99-12 Language Sampling for Multilingual Lexical Representation

This paper discusses the issue of language sampling in the development of a framework for multilingual lexical representation (MLR). The approach to MLR adopted here aims at developing a hierarchical lexical structure which permits sharing of information across languages. The multilingual nature of such a lexical hierarchy raises methodological and theoretical issues for its design and development. In order to solve these issues, different models will be studied and implemented. To make sure that the resulting framework will be generally valid covering all variants encountered in natural language it is necessary to use a language sample that explores as much as possible the full range of forms and constructions that can occur. This paper shows how a representative subset of languages can be selected.