Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

154in stripping the FrameNet database of its English-specific lexical descriptions and in repopulatingthe lexical database with non-English lexical descriptions (cf. Boas 2005: 457).Lexicon in different languages can then be linked via semantic frames.In fact, several databases for languages as varied as German, Spanish, Japanese,Chinese, Portuguese, and Swedish have been created or are in the process of being createdbased on the same FrameNet model. The way they do this as well as the research goals mayvary from one project to another. For instance, the Spanish FrameNet (SFN) was structuredalong lines similar to those of the original FrameNet project (Subirats 2007; Subiratsand Hiroaki 2004; Subirats and Petruck 2003). However, if the majority of the projectscovering the general lexicon decided to reuse the FrameNet database, not all projects thatdescribe specialized domains do this. For instance, the Kicktionary and the EcoLexiconfind it more appropriate to follow a bottom-up approach in which the frames are not copiedfrom the frames already described in FrameNet because the vast majority of the frames theyidentify are simply not in FrameNet. Even though some frames related to the subject fieldof law are described in FrameNet (Appendix 7), we believe that for our research purposes itis better to use the same bottom-up approach followed in the Kicktionary and in theEcoLexicon. There are two reasons for this.Firstly, FrameNet was conceived for the general language and it does not guaranteethat it thoroughly describes technical fields. So, if we were to strip the FrameNet databaseof its English-specific lexical descriptions and re-populate it with non-English lexicaldescriptions, we would not only miss some relevant frames but we would also be forced tofit the non-English lexical descriptions of cultural terms into the moulds of English-specificlexical descriptions. Secondly, as Bertoldi and Chishman (2012) note, differences betweenthe legal systems may render difficult the application of the semantic tags created for theEnglish lexical units, which were based on the American legal system, to another language.However, this does not mean that the frames described in FrameNet may not serve as a