Multilingual lexis, semantics, and onomasiology. Terminological database modelling, by using the CuProS metarepresentation language: An XML-compatible XML-Precursor enabling flexible nested-relation structures

Abstract

The twin subjects of this article are (a) a description of a knowledge-representation schema based on deeply nested relations, with no limit on depth and flexibly structured, subserved by a metadatadriven tool for retrieval from deep, flexibly structured nested relations (this project, Raffaello, originated in the 1980s, independently of SGML, which itself was later simplified into the now popular XML, with which our approach is compatible); and (b) an outline of an application to a multilingual database of cognate lexical items. Lexical databases for language families are of particular interest to, e.g., Romance terminologists where a coordinated development of new sublexicons is sought, but historical databases (e.g., for Semitologists) also stand to benefit from such representations where lexical contacts across languages are taken into account. Our application as described here is mainly to the lexicon of Hebrew and Semitic languages. The database management system is called Raffaello, whereas its metarepresentation language is called CuProS, for Customization Production System.