about the definition of LexicalConcept in the specs

Dear all,

I was caught by the deskmate syndrome: while explaining something about Ontolex to a colleague, had the occasion to revise the specs and noticed something that doesn't add up to me.

In particular, I think the definition of LexicalConcept goes against its original intention (and intension).

Taken from the specs in: http://www.w3.org/2016/05/ontolex/#lexical-concept

"[...] sometimes we would like to express the fact that a certain lexical entry evokes<http://www.w3.org/2016/05/ontolex/#evokes> a certain mental concept rather than that it refers to a class with a formal interpretation in some model. Thus, in lemon we introduce the class Lexical Concept<http://www.w3.org/2016/05/ontolex/#LexicalConcept> that represents a mental abstraction, concept or unit of thought that can be lexicalized by a given collection of senses.

I disagree on the "can be lexicalized".

The LexicalConcept was introduced to express the very nature of those elements that are created with a semasiological approach, that is: you have a lexical expression, and you create a concept representing the meaning of that word. Concepts created with an onomasiological approach (i.e. I know XXX exists, and then I look for the words referring to it), as in thesauri, are not LexicalConcepts. I remember that I suggested the name LexicalConcept, borrowing it from Miller [1], with a clear hint to WordNet synsets (but providing a more general name), which are created a-posteriori to provide meanings to the words in the WordNet lexical database.

Thus, a synset in WordNet is a ontolex:LexicalConcept, a concept in Agrovoc is (should be?) just a skos:Concept, and the we should invert the definition to express the fact that LexicalConcepts provide meaning to existing Lexical Entries.

Cheers,

Armando

P.S I might be not recalling some other discussion or the rationale for which LexicalConcept was changed to be this way, but I wondered it could just have been an inexact definition given a posteriori when we were writing the specs.


[1] George A. Miller and Richard Beckwith and Christiane Fellbaum and Derek Gross and Katherine Miller. Introduction to WordNet: An On-line Lexical Database. International Journal of Lexicography, 1990.