Article published In: Terminology: Online-First Articles
Meaning distinctions in terminology research
A lexicon-driven approach applied to Brazilian Portuguese
Published online: 9 March 2026
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00091.lam
https://doi.org/10.1075/term.00091.lam
Abstract
In this paper, we study how meaning of a polysemous lexical item is distinguished in a terminological research study to account for terms from the field of the environment in Brazilian Portuguese. This research is related to two multilingual terminological resources, the DiCoEnviro. Dictionnaire fondamental de l’environnement. Accessed October 20, 2025. [URL] — and A Framed Version of DiCoEnviro. Accessed October 20, 2025. [URL], both under the coordination of the Observatoire de Linguistique Sens-Texte (OLST), Université de Montréal, Canada. The focus is on the verb poluir (to pollute), a polysemous lexical item, extracted from a corpus, especially compiled for the research, made up of scientific articles on the topic of pollution. The research draws on the lexicon-driven approach (LDA) encompassing two frameworks, Explanatory Combinatorial Lexicology (ECL) and Frame Semantics (FS). Based on eight methodological steps, the terminological research adopts a specific perspective on the linguistic properties of terms and on the expression of specialized knowledge in semantic frames. The results show two meanings for poluir, poluir1a and poluir1b, each meaning presenting a different argument structure, with a different number of arguments and semantic roles, and attributed to different frames, Contamination and Cause_Contamination respectively.
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.Lexicon-driven approach (LDA)
- 2.1The expression of specialized knowledge
- 2.2The definition of a frame
- 3.Distinction of meanings: The case of poluir (to pollute): A polysemous lexical item
- 4.The expression of knowledge: The case of poluir1a and poluir1b
- 5.Concluding remarks
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
References
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