1991:2 - Universitetet i Bergen

at text only at the Etvel of the graphic word and satisfy the needs of
researchers in only a very simple way. There is a need for more
sophistieated software to incorporate Iemmatization @utting words under
their dfctionary hcadings), pusing, and sernantic analysis in order to
provide the kind of text retrieval which users need.
Currenr research in compuhtional linguistics is concentrating on these
problerns and systems are being developed which use a morphoIogica1
analyser, a parser and a machine-readable dictionary as mls in the
retrieval process. Thesc dictionaries or Icxical databases are often derived
starting from a prioted dictionary which is then resrnictured to reflect
the sernantic relationships bctween words, hyponyms, synonyms etc.
Printed diclionarics tend ta concenuate on unusual usage of words. The
Iexical database is often augrnented wilh information about the more
comrnon usagcs by further information derived from language corpora.
Most work in this area is concenuating on the requisemenls of the
so-called "anguage industries' applications of modcrn prose text, e-g.
language understanding systems, intelligent wordprocessors, language
teaching systems. Literaq and oiher schaIarly texts arc more difficult
to handle because of historical language, unusual usage, variant spellings,
meraphors and possibly dcIiberate ambiguity, but experiments are already
being conducted to tackle them in this way.
4. DATABASE A PPLICATIONS
TradiSional applications in histary, archacology, art history and related
subjecls have been in databases and statistical analyser,. In many of
these applications it is less clear what the source material is and how
to identify and organize it within the computer. The development of
compuling in hese subjects was harnpered by the inadequacy of early
database software which began with the 'flat file' model of one table
or rnatnx, which was necessary because of tape-only sequential sterage.
Many historians and archacologisl fell that the computer was not for
them as lhey were nor able to model their data elfectively within the
one tablc stnicture. Methods of handling missing information werc also
difficult as was Lhe ned for much variable Iengfh data which had to
be fitted into data models which allowed only fixed lengih fields.
The intraduction of stnictured dalabases on the nelwork, hierarchic,
or relatienal modcls folIowing the increased usage OF disk-based sierage,
permitted more flexibIe modelling of the data, but requircd the scholar
lo spend some considetable time working nut an entity made1 for data,
often using rems and concepts wiih which he or she wac not fmiIiar.
Most sttuctured dalabase software. e-g. DBASE, INFORMIX. TNGRES,
ORACLE is naw based on the relation model, in which it is not
HUMANISTISKE DATA M 1 7