Université de Montréal - Thèse sous forme numérique

73Among these studies, some contributions are particularly relevant for the presentresearch. This is the case of the criteria for validating the specialized status of verbselaborated in L‘Homme (1998, 2004) and in Lorente (2007) as well as themethodologies for describing specialized verbs (e.g. Lerat 2002a; Alves et al. 2005).These methodologies are based on several theoretical models; they have differentapplication purposes and have been applied to several languages. Nonetheless, only afew have concentrated on the equivalence of specialized verbs as well as on the designof methodologies for identifying and validating the equivalents of this type of units.In this sub-chapter, we will argue that a unified theoretical and methodologicalframework for the description of verbs occurring in legal texts and for the identificationof their equivalents is still necessary. It will also be argued that the framework that willbe used in this research should include, in a unified way, the principles described in thestate of the art that are the most relevant for the purpose of the research.In one way or another, five theoretical approaches have been applied tospecialized verbs: the theory of classes of objects (section 2.3.1); the Meaning-TextTheory‘s Explanatory and Combinatorial Lexicology (section 2.3.2); theCommunicative Theory of Terminology (section 2.3.3); an ontology-oriented approach(section 2.3.4); and a speech-act-theory-based approach (section 2.3.5). We then refer tothe few works that have concentrated on the equivalents of specialized verbs (section2.3.6). While reviewing these contributions emphasis will be placed on considerationsregarding verbs that occur in legal texts.2.3.1. The theory of classes of objectsThe theory of classes of objects was developed by Gross (1994, 1995, 1996) and LePesant and Mathieu-Colas (1998) for Natural Language Processing (NLP) applications,namely for the elaboration of electronic dictionaries. The theory stems from the