DEC Facile: Bringing Combinatory Explanatory Dictionaries to the Semantic Web

This paper presents DEC Facile, a tool specifically developed for the construction of computational Explanatory Combinatorial Dictionaries (ECDs). Unlike existing dictionary editors, DEC Facile combines the theoretical rigor of Explanatory Combinatorial Lexicology with Semantic Web standards, being powered by LexO-server and extended with Ontolex-Lemon modules. By natively integrating Linked Data principles, it ensures that lexical and terminology resources are interoperable, reusable, and easily connected to other datasets. The platform provides a user-friendly interface supporting core lexicographic and terminological tasks such as dictionary search, sense editing, and the encoding of lexical functions. DEC Facile thus represents a novel environment for lexicography, terminography, and computational linguistics, bridging the gap between ECL-based resources and the Semantic Web ecosystem. The system is currently being applied within the PRIN project Old Words for a New World. Translating Christianity to Baltic Pagans, where it supports the construction of an ECD for the earliest Baltic catechisms (Old Lithuanian, Old Latvian and Old Prussian).