The terminological tagging of the NooJ italian compound word dictionary

Abstract

In this paper, and in relation to the construction of electronic dictionaries for NooJ, we will deal with the tagging of Italian compound words, and with how it differs from that of simple words as for methods, functions, and purposes. We will especially focus our attention on the tagging of technical-scientific compound words, demonstrating how this operation, in NooJ, represents a crucial tool for both information extraction and knowledge automatic management and representation. Furthermore, with the intention to producing a complete analysis, we will provide the definitions of simple word and compound word, from both a formal and a linguistic point of view. As for the linguistic examination, we will adopt two different approaches. For the first one, we will use the analytic methods of Zellig S. Harris, who first set out, in structuralist terms and in relation to English, the study of the composition of different morphemes in more complex linguistic units, hence also of word groups or phrases. For the second one, we will make extensive reference to the methodological framework of language formalization described by Maurice Gross' Lexicon-Grammar, as to its subsequent adaptations to the Italian language. Finally, as we will see, it will be of fundamental importance for us to differentiate the definitions that we will give here of compound words from the more generic and less precise one of multiword expressions (MWE). To justify this differentiation, we will provide not only formal indications, but also lexical, morphosyntactic and semantic ones.