Original scientific paper

Lexicalizing the Concept of Sentimentality

Željko Bujas

Abstract

The assumption that “words express ideas” is first tested against a rank list of general vocabulary of American English. The lexical items expressing the top concepts established (Man, Time, Space) are found to closely correspond to top items in a similar rank list of Russian. This proves both the universality of the top concepts and
the validity of the original assumption. The paper then proceeds to investigate how the concept of “sentimentality” is lexicalized. First, definitions from obviously relevant entries (containing the base sentimenta) in a collegiate dictionary of English are mined for keywords. T ese lead to other entries and their definitions which , in
their turn, yield new keywords. This production of lexical items expressing the concept of "Sentimentality" is considerably expanded in the next step, when two large thesauri of English are Submitted to a similar process. Finally, the resulting lists are convincingly demonstrated to be rewarding devices in a (simulated) computer-supported search for the presence, direct and indirect, of the diffuse
concept of “sentimentality” in such a vast and varied mine as the text of Encyclopaedia Britannica.

Keywords

Hrčak ID:

121617

URI

https://hrcak.srce.hr/121617

Publication date:

26.10.1987.

Article data in other languages: croatian

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