Lexicon

To simplify the lexicon, i.e., to make it easy and lightweight, and further to keep the amount of biased entries low, some typical pairs of opposite words describing points on scales, e.g. 'small' and 'large', were collapsed into one stem. The words are then formed by the stem plus a degree. Further, the abstract property, e.g. 'size', is formed by the same stem plus the stem for 'property'.

For this simplification to be allowed for a pair of words, the following requirements must be fulfilled. If any requirement is not met, several stems will be introduced in the lexicon.

• The scale must have exactly one end-point, the objective 0 of the scale. It must not be a -1...+1 scale. Further, the scale must be open to the other side. Again, this judgement must be made in an objective way.

  Scales with no end-point or two end-points would indirectly incur a bias to the direction of the degree scale, i.e., there would be a bias wrt. what is the -1 and what is the +1 end, while it would be equally feasible to swap the whole degree scale. Therefore, the selection of the lexicon entry would introduce a bias to the lexicon, because the opposite lexicon entry would be equally feasible. To prevent this type of bias, only scales with a clear 0 are permitted, so that swapping the scale is infeasible and there is a clear, objective choice to be made for the lexicon entry.

  In the same way, scales with two end-points are bad for the same reason, since the scale's reference point may be swapped.

  The restriction that there must not be a second end-point shall be less strict than the one-end-point requirement, and shall be made on a human perspective. E.g. speed and weight etc. shall be unlimited scales, for example, although the speed of light exists etc. So the requirement is more of a scale with at least one end-point that is clearly more relevant to human speakers than a potential second end-point.

  Pairs like 'male'-'female' and also 'good'-'bad' clearly fail on this requirement, so for these, there are two lexicon entries (which are not derived one from another).