La polysemie adjectivale : un defi pour le traitement automatique des langues

Abstract

The purpose of this paper is to approach the problem of disambiguation of one type of polysemic units, that is adjectives in the context of translation. On the basis of the French adjective piquant analyzed as a case of study, following the object oriented method, the author demonstrates that this item could have a few equivalents in other languages. The selection of an appropriate linguistic equivalent depends on the context in which a particular unit appears. Such multiple possible interpretations pose a major problem for the description of the polysemic terms in lexicographical publications, as well as for automatic translation technology. To exactly pinpoint all the available senses and equivalents, the author makes use of the theory of classes of objects.