Correcting Errors in Digital Lexicographic Resources Using a Dictionary Manipulation Language

We describe a paradigm for combining manual and automatic error correction of noisy structured lexicographic data. Modifications to the structure and underlying text of the lexicographic data are expressed in a simple, interpreted programming language. Dictionary Manipulation Language (DML) commands identify nodes by unique identifiers, and manipulations are performed using simple commands such as create, move, set text, etc. Corrected lexicons are produced by applying sequences of DML commands to the source version of the lexicon. DML commands can be written manually to repair one-off errors or generated automatically to correct recurring problems. We discuss advantages of the paradigm for the task of editing digital bilingual dictionaries.