ISO 22745-11:2010(E)

6 General principles

6.1 Language of the dictionary

Each term or definition shall be associated with a word dictionary used for the purposes of validating spelling and defining common terms. The word dictionary also indicates the language of the term or definition (see 5.1).

NOTE 1  OTDs can be classified as shown in Table 1 based on their use of language.

Table 1 — Classification of OTDs according to language use

Class Title Description

1

monolingual

Each concept in the OTD has terminology (including at least one term and at least one definition) in a given language, L. All terms and definitions in the OTD are in language L.

EXAMPLE 1  An OTD in which all terminology is in English.

EXAMPLE 2  An OTD in which all terminology is in German.

2

monolingual plus

Each concept in the OTD has terminology (including at least one term and at least one definition) in a given language, L 1. Some concepts have terms or definitions in other languages, L 2,....

EXAMPLE 3  An OTD in which each concept has terminology in English, and some concepts also have terminology in German.

3

multilingual

Each concept in the OTD has terminology (including at least one term and at least one definition) in each language of a given set of two or more languages, L 1,...., Ln . Each term or definition in the OTD is in one of the languages L 1,...., Ln .

NOTE 2  In the case where n = 2, the dictionary is called "bilingual". In the case where n = 3, the dictionary is called "triilingual".

EXAMPLE 4  An OTD in which each concept has a term and a definition in both English and German (bilingual).

EXAMPLE 5  An OTD in which each concept has terminology in each of English, German, and French (trilingual).

4

partitioned language

Each concept in the OTD has terminology (including at least one term and at least one definition) in exactly one language, but not all concepts have terminology in the same language.

EXAMPLE 6  An OTD in which about half the concepts have terminology in English and the remaining concepts have terminology in German.

EXAMPLE 7  An OTD in which about 40% of the concepts have terminology in English only, about 30% of the concepts have terminology in German only, and the remaining concepts have terminology in French only.

5

mixed language

Each concept in the OTD has at least one term and at least one definition in some language; however, there is no language L 1 such that each concept in the OTD has a term and definition in language L 1.

EXAMPLE 8  An OTD in which about 40% of the concepts have terminology in English only, about 40% of the concepts have terminology in German only, and about 20% of the concepts have terminology in both English and German.

6.2 Principle of substitution

The following "principle of substitution" shall apply to definitions in an OTD.

A definition is valid if it can replace a designation in a text without a change or loss of meaning. (See ISO 704.)

EXAMPLE   Suppose that "tree" is defined as follows:

tree

a large, perennial, woody plant

Consider the sentence: "A tree grows in the forest." Applying the principle of substitution, the word "tree" is replaced by the above definition, resulting in: "A a large, perennial, woody plant grows in the forest." The article "a" appears twice, which is incorrect. The following definition complies with the principle of substitution:

tree

large, perennial, woody plant

6.3 Identification

Each concept, designation and definition shall be identified by a globally unambiguous identifier.


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