Acquilex : computational model of the dictionary entry

Printed dictionary entries are highly structured and very complex pieces of text; the information content depends to a large extent on features of layout and the use of a metalanguage, which is generally (but not always completely) explained in the Introduction and User Notes at the beginning of the dictionary. The entry thus contains a mixture of explicit and implicit information interspersed with codes for type-setting and formatting. However, in a computational model of the entry, the lexical information must be extracted from the rest, interpreted and represented explicitly. At the same time, it is useful to maintain a trace of the entry structure, represented in the printed version by means of particular typographic conventions.