RE: [topicmaps-comment] multilingual thesaurus - language, scope,and topic naming constraint

[Jon Jermey & Glenda Browne <webindexing@optusnet.com.au>]

Are you able to adapt the thesaurus at all? If so, I would simply add a
qualifier to each of the terms that have more than one meaning, to show
which meaning is relevant at the time. This is commonly done in monolingual
thesauruses, and would be useful here. For example, an English thesaurus may
have the terms 'squash (game)' and 'squash (vegetable)'. You could have
something like 'economie (discipline)' and 'economie (system)'. You will
then have unique terms for each concept, and they will be clearly defined to
all indexers and searchers.

I'm only a novice at topic maps, so forgive me if this misses the point.

Glenda.

> -----Original Message-----
> From: Bernard Vatant [mailto:bernard.vatant@mondeca.com]
> Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 4:07 AM
> To: topicmaps-comments
> Subject: [topicmaps-comment] multilingual thesaurus - language, scope,
> and topic naming constraint
>
>
> Folks
>
> I need a little help from my friends here ...
>
> I'm currently working on GEMET, a multilingual thesaurus
> published by the European
> Environment Agency (over 9000 terms in 18 european languages,
> with references to hundreds
> of sources ...) and trying to provide an XTM version ... a challenge ...
>
> I stumbled on a case where different descriptors have the same
> name in some languages, and
> different ones in some others.
> For example, compare the two following descriptors, and their
> names in six languages given
> by the thesaurus.
>
> topic 1: "The social study of the production, distribution, and
> consumption of wealth."
>
> DAN : økonomi
> DUT : economie
> ENG : economics
> FRE : science économique
> GER : Ökonomie
> SPA : economía
>
> topic 2: "The system of activities and administration through
> which a society uses its
> resources to produce wealth."
>
> DAN : økonomi
> DUT : economie
> ENG : economy
> FRE : économie
> GER : Wirtschaft
> SPA : economía
>
> It looks like english, german and french makes the difference,
> whereas dutch, danish and
> spanish clearly don't ... although I'm pretty sure they do
> distinguish the concepts
> (social science vs economical system) but it does not show in the
> names the Thesaurus
> provides.
>
> If I use languages as scopes - which is usual - how will the
> topic naming constraint
> apply? Should my TM engine merge topic1 and topic2, because they
> have the same name in the
> scope "SPA"? Does not make sense ...
>
> Suggestions?
>
> Bernard
>
>
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