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This contribution presents the procedure used in the Handbuch deutscher Kommunikationsverben and in its online version Kommunikationsverben in the lexicographical internet portal OWID to divide sets of semantically similar communication verbs into ever smaller sets of ever closer synonyms. Kommunikationsverben describes the meaning of communication verbs on two levels: a lexical level, represented in the dictionary entries and by sets of lexical features, and a conceptual level, represented by different types of situations referred to by specific types of verbs. The procedure starts at the conceptual level of meaning where verbs used to refer to the same specific situation type are grouped together. At the lexical level of meaning, the sets of verbs obtained from the first step are successively divided into smaller sets on the basis of the criteria of (i) identity of lexical meaning, (ii) identity of lexical features, and (iii) identity of contexts of usage. The stepwise procedure applied is shown to result in the creation of a semantic network for communication verbs.
Kommunikationsverben, an online reference work on German communication verbs and part of the dictionary portal OWID, describes the meaning of communication verbs on two levels: a lexical level, represented in the dictionary entries and by sets of lexical features, and a conceptual level, represented by different types of situations referred to by specific types of verbs. These two levels have each been implemented in special types of access structures. A first explorative access to the conceptual level provides the user with a list of the main classes of communication verbs, the subclasses of each of these, and the lexical fields pertaining to each subclass. Lexical fields are presented together with a characterisation of the situation type to which the verbs of that field are used to refer. Information about the conceptual level is additionally accessible by an advanced search option allowing the user to combine components of the characterisation of situation types to “create” any kind of situation and search for the verbs that correspond to it. Information about the lexical level of the meaning of communication verbs is accessible via the dictionary entries and by another advanced search option allowing the user to search for verbs with particular lexical features or combinations of these.