A lexical database organizes information about the lexemes of a language. It can record forms, part of speech, definitions, word senses, examples and relationships among entries. A database representation makes these items separately identifiable and queryable rather than treating an entire entry as one unstructured string.[ref]
Lexical Database in the SIL Glossary of Linguistic Terms. Definition and Discussion, entry contents and sense-specific information
For a toy design, an entry for
bank can link to distinct word sense records for a financial institution and a river margin, each with an example sentence. A form record for banks can refer to the relevant entry without requiring duplicated definitions. Spelling is consequently an inadequate unique identifier: different lexical analyses can involve the same written form.A lexical database can also connect entries to attested uses in a text corpus, as in FieldWorks Language Explorer. The stored relations support searches and revision, but the linguistic annotation still represents an analysis whose evidence must be retained.
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