Fishing out regular polysemy with the Gener (generic) relation

Abstract

Lexical Systems are formal network models of natural language lexicons. They are characterized by their graph structure that is mainly woven by paradigmatic and syntagmatic lexical relations known as lexical functions. Being organized as “social networks of words,” Lexical Systems are radically distinct from taxonomic models which organize lexical units within hierarchized classes. In spite of their apparent messiness, these structures are perfectly suited for the storage of lexical regularities. This paper is devoted to the Gener (generic) lexical function and its significance for the identification and modeling of regular polysemy in network models of the Lexical System family. We show how the systematic lexicographic encoding of Gener relations allows for the study of polysemy patterns and the uniform modeling of this phenomenon in lexicographic models. The approach is illustrated based on the lexicographic construction of a Lexical System – the French Lexical Network (fr-LN) –, using the generic term Fr. fleur ‘flower’.