Multiword Expressions: Between Lexicography and NLP

Abstract

The paper aims to establish a synergy between the lexicographic and natural language processing (NLP) communities in relation to concepts and classifications of multiword expressions (MWEs), their representation in dictionaries, dictionary databases, and NLP-oriented MWE lexicons. It begins with an overview of basic MWErelated linguistic concepts and how they are reflected in the lexicographic treatment of MWEs, as well as their role in language technology. A comparison of different lexicographic and NLP classifications of MWEs is presented, with an elaboration of why different typologies are (or are not) useful for different users from both communities. The methodology for the description of MWEs in a set of dictionary databases is discussed, and the results of an analysis of the representation of MWEs based on a small sample of dictionary projects are presented. Finally, some suggestions are provided on how to improve dictionary databases in relation to MWE description and how to improve the results of NLP tasks by using existing descriptions of MWEs in dictionaries.