Presenting collocates in a dictionary of computing and the Internet according to user needs

This paper presents a novel method for organizing and presenting collocations in a specialized dictionary of computing and the Internet. This work is undertaken in order to meet a specific user need, i.e. that of searching for a collocate (or a short list of collocates) that expresses a specific meaning in a text production situation. The model we suggest is based on lexical functions (=LFs) that formally encode syntactic, argumental and semantic properties of collocations. LFs are grouped in larger semantic classes (e.g., USE, CREATE, PLACE SOMEWHERE, etc.). The model is in the process of being implemented in the online version of the dictionary. Users are prompted with generic meanings associated with the classes we created and they can then select verb and noun collocates that express more specific meanings. The article describes the model for grouping collocations and its implementation. Finally we present a small pilot study that was conducted in order to gather some user feedback on the usefulness of the method.