Structuring Lexical Data and Digitising Dictionaries: Grammatical Theory, Language Processing and Databases in Historical Linguistics

In order to guarantee open access and full searchability, research in historical lexicography and lexicology must follow the same directions as the evolution of the Internet, which has moved from hypertext-based resources to more significative services and products stored and disseminated through databases and, more recently, through knowledge bases. Against this background, this book addresses specific questions like What is involved in the digitisation of linguistic data? What annotation systems can give rise to datasets compatible with knowledge bases? What standards are needed to reach full searchability? What sources and methods can be used to gather the lemmas of a historical dictionary? What determines the obsolescence of lexicographical resources?

Javier Martín Arista is Professor of Old English and Linguistics at the University of La Rioja. He is the principal investigator of a research project in the corpus linguistics and lexicography of Old English with methods of digital humanities, computational linguistics, natural language processing, and artificial intelligence.

Ana Elvira Ojanguren López is Lecturer in English at the University of La Rioja. She earned her doctorate with a thesis dealing with the syntax and semantics of Old English within the framework of Role and Reference Grammar. She has published in several specialised journals, like Journal of Historical Linguistcs, and is the author of the book Predications in competition and the rise of serial verbs in English (Peter Lang, 2024).