Heterodox concept features and onomasiological heterogeneity 29constitute a structural reflection of lower concept salience; according to the
second reason, multiword expressions reflect the fact that the concept is not
structurally entrenched in the lexicon at all. Examples of multiword expres-
sions in the database include haar wie een stekelvarken ‘hair like a porcu-
pine’, haar wie stro, ‘hair like straw’, steil haar ‘flat, straight hair’, stijf
haar ‘stiff hair’, for the concept BORSTELIG HAAR 'brushy hair'. As a meas-
urement, we take the proportion (at the token level) of the number of mul-
tiword answers in the total set of answers for a concept.
- The vagueness of concepts is measured in terms of their lexical non-
uniqueness: if a term for naming the concept at hand can also be used for
naming another concept, then this may be seen as an indication that the
concept at hand is not always easily distinguishable from the other concept.
We quantify lexical uniqueness of a concept as the number of lexical types
in the onomasiological range of that concept that also features in the set of
expressions associated with a different concept. As an example, consider
the following overview of the expressions found for the concept LIES
'groin'. The first column lists the lexical expressions we find, the second the
frequency with which they are found, and the third mentions whether the
same lexical expression may also be found as expressing another concept.
In this example, then, five out of nine types are non-unique.
Table 1. Expressions found for the concept LIES 'groin'
lies 178 lies also used for BEKKENHOLTE ‘pelvic cavity’
de dun 17
vlim 6 vlim also used for WIMPER ‘eyelash’
lende 2 lende also used for LENDE ‘loin’
liest 2
hees 1 hees also used for KNIEHOLTE ‘knee pit’
lee 1 lee also used for LENDE ‘loin’
liesje 1
var 1
The example makes clear that alternative operationalizations of lexical non-
uniqueness will have to be envisaged in future research. Next to the intro-
duction of a proportional token-based rather than type-based measurement,
attention will have to be devoted to the distinction between vagueness and