Double-Decker Definitions: The Role of Frames in Meaning Explanations

This article maintains that certain kinds of structured background information (or "frames") should be treated as essential components or accompaniments of word definitions. For ordinary print dictionaries, the provision of such information would amount to a very large investment. Instead, we should be thinking in terms of a dictionary on compact disk or preferably a web utility with hyperlinks facilitating easy access to the necessary background information. Since a single background frame, entered only once, can serve many word senses, its description could be made accessible from all of the relevant entries; it does not need to occupy space within the text of individual entries. The advent of the electronic format thus makes it possible to fully integrate frame-based lexicoencyclopedic information into lexicographic descriptions.