Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
‒
if a taxonomic domain of knowledge is missing from the ASW meta-lexicon,
the researcher adds it as a
new object of analysis*
(that is, [Object …]) peculiar to
“his” group of users - an object of analysis which is employed in the form of the
canonic triplet [Taxon of the domain …], [Feature of the domain…], [System of the
domain …].
Let us again highlight that there must be no confusion between the
taxonomic
domain of knowledge
and the
topical structure*
(or indeed,
a fortiori
, the
thematic
structure*
; see section 5.3) defining a domain of knowledge which can be
thematized (in one way or another) in an audiovisual text or corpus. The former, as
we have just seen, is a field made up of conceptual terms which has a certain
semantic homogeneity
thanks to the conceptual term which serves as the
closest
heading
to the branch in which that conceptual field lies. The latter is an
arrangement which models a domain of knowledge, and in doing so, selects the
conceptual terms relevant to it - no matter whether they come from one or several
taxonomic domains in the ASW meta-lexicon. As we have already seen many times
in the preceding chapters, the conceptual terms selected in a
topical configuration*
often come from
different taxonomic domains
and maintain
relations other than
simplyhierarchicalones
in the taxonomical sense of the term.
Let us return once again to the organization of the ASW vocabulary of
conceptual terms. This is essentially based on the relations of
unilateral dependency
and
reciprocal dependency
between conceptual terms belonging to the vocabulary.
The former manifests itself in the positioning of general and specialized conceptual
terms in relation to one another (or between conceptual terms which have a variable
semantic
density
). Here we speak of
hypernyms
and
hyponyms
(the
hypernym
is the
more general conceptual term, the
hyponym
the more specific conceptual term). The
latter relates to the positioning of two or more conceptual terms which all depend on
the same hypernym conceptual term and which are therefore partially similar (or, if
we wish, dissimilar). This second relation enables a distinction to be drawn between
antonymous
conceptual terms or
contrary
ones (in the sense of
gradual opposition
;
this should be distinguished from
contradiction
which is an opposition of
mutual
exclusion
).
Finally, as stated above, in addition to the two basic relations for constructing
any hierarchical vocabulary of conceptual terms (namely that of
hypernymic/
hyponymous specialization
and that of
gradual opposition
or
mutual exclusion
), we
also use a set of other semantic categories called
classemes
in structural semantics
[GRE 66], to identify and distinguish groups or semantic subsets of conceptual
terms from the set of terms which make up the ASW meta-lexicon. One particular
category of these classemes is made up of those which F. Rastier calls
semantic
dimension
[RAS 87] - a type of category which forms a small
delimited class
of
(gradual) oppositions.
