The Absence of Text: The Bilingual Dictionary as an Index

A bilingual dictionary used for translation is really an index of the monolingual dictionaries upon which it is based. The actual text is found in the monolingual dictionaries, which supply the semantic element and meaning not present in the index. This index, bereft of meaning, is free from circularity, is prescriptive, is incomplete when lemmas from the monolingual dictionaries cannot be matched, and, in its present state, is more efficient for decoding than for encoding. Techniques are sought for supplying text to this bilingual index by integration with monolingual dictionaries, encyclopedias, and other materials. The computer may make this referencing possible.