SLAM. Automatic lexical solutions for metaphors

This article presents SLAM, an Automatic Solver for Lexical Metaphors like “déshabiller* une pomme” (to undress* an apple). SLAM calculates a conventional solution for these productions. To carry on it, SLAM has to intersect the paradigmatic axis of the metaphorical verb “déshabiller*”, where “peler” (“to peel”) comes closer, with a syntagmatic axis that comes from a corpus where “peler une pomme” (to peel an apple) is semantically and syntactically regular. We test this model on DicoSyn, which is a “small world” network of synonyms, to compute the paradigmatic axis and on Frantext.20, a French corpus, to compute the syntagmatic axis. Further, we evaluate the model with a sample of an experimental corpus of the database of Flexsem MOTS-CLÉS : métaphore, synonyme, proxsem, graphe, petit monde, prox, flexsem, syntex.