ANALYSIS OF “ CLASSICAL ” AND LEGISLATIVE DEFINITIONS FOR THE TERM RECORDS OF THE SLOVAK TERMINOLOGY DATABASE

Th e paper presents a comparative study of „classical“ and legislative defi nitions referring to the same concept in the fi eld of law, which reveal multidimensional nature of these concepts. Th e author focuses on one hand on typology of defi nitions and on the other on their structure, coherence and applicability. Th e aim is to decide, on the basis of this comparison, which type of defi nition is to be used to represent concepts in the domain of law in the Slovak Terminology Database, addressing not only lawyers but also lay public, so that defi nitions included in this Database can facilitate and enhance knowledge acquisition.

Every terminologist agrees that "ultimate purpose of any terminological resource is to facilitate and enhance knowledge acquisition" (Faber 2001:194).Th erefore, any team involved in terminology management, whatever the type, size, purpose and target audience of the given terminology collection might be, cannot but cope and answer the essential question: What is the optimal method for achieving this goal in our case?Or, to put it more precisely: What is the best way for representing "specialised" concepts?And because of the fact that it is the defi nition that is widely acknowledged as the key terminological information, more specifi c question requires to be answered: What criteria should a defi nition meet in order to help the user to acquire specialised knowledge from this collection?And the team must bear in mind that in case of reusing diff erent terminological sources refl ecting points of view of various authors the key issue is to harmonise their defi nitions and thus ensure consistency and clarity of information.
1 Th e author is a Comenius University graduate in French and English translation studies, she has taken PhD degree in French linguistics and currently works as terminologist at the Ľ.Štúr Institute of Linguistics, Slovak Academy of Sciences, Bratislava.Th e paper does not have the ambition to present extensive and theoretical study on defi nitions and legal defi nitions in particular, instead it focuses on the comparison of direct quotations from Slovak legislation and their "classical" counterparts or paraphrases, which had been incorporated in the beta version of the Slovak Terminology Database (hereinaft er referred to as the STD), both types featuring as defi nitions for the same legal concept.Th e reason behind this comparison is a contradiction between the requirement of defi nition's authenticity and the need for its adaptation to the guidelines of a specifi c terminology collection, i.e. many terminology databases include defi nitions from various primary or secondary knowledge or terminology resources in a cut-and-paste fashion (Faber 2006:40) without taking into consideration the complementarity of term record data categories and its coherence with respect to related term records.Although defi nition creation imperatively leads to the selection of conceptual characteristics dictated by the author's point of view, degree of the accuracy of the conceptual description, culture etc. Defi nitions should not be therefore treated as given information but as a construction (see Bessé 1996).
Upon a brief introduction dealing with STD project presentation, the focus of the paper will be drawn to the defi nition in general -its delimitation and structure, its typology and functions, criteria of formation, and will close with a focus on legal defi nitions and their specifi cities.In the second part the attention will be paid to the defi nition analysis itself, which will subsequently enable to draw the concluding suggestion for appropriate treatment of defi nitions.Th e aim of the paper is to determine or propose guidelines for modifi cations, if acceptable by domain experts, that a legislative defi nition can or should undergo when included into the STD.

Project of the slovak terminology database
Th e STD, which started in the autumn of 2005, was conceived as a monolingual database to provide the user with both conceptual and linguistic information.From the very planning phase of the project the STD was to aspire for the cooperation with leading European database IATE in terms of exchanging terminological data, and that is why the same classifi cation system EUROVOC 4.2 Th esaurus was chosen for the STD.As for the STD soft ware the team chose and adapted the ready-made, open source and especially userfriendly WikiWikiWeb editing system based on MoinMoin.Although the STD was started with insertion of already compiled terminological resources, the main line of project methodology favours the extraction of lexical unitspotential terminological units from running specialised texts included in specialised corpora and followed by the validation of their relevancy and correctness by domain experts.
As far as the term record design is concerned, the inspiration was drawn especially from the ISO 10241:1992 International terminology standards --Preparation and layout.Nowadays, resulting term record comprises -aft er several updates -13 data categories, 7 out of which are obligatory.In order to satisfy the needs of professionals, lay public and last but not least the translators and interpreters, obligatory categories include term, fi eld, defi nition, context, related terms and sources of both defi nition and context.Remaining optional fi elds of the term record feature synonym, foreign language equivalent, acceptability, indication of the institution or terminology committee that approved the head term, comment and links to relevant reliable web pages.
Th e beta version of the STD, launched online in May 2007, was focused on reusing and adapting existing quality terminology resources published in particular in the Slovak linguistic revue Kultúra slova, as the team received a copyright license for their non-commercial use.Th e testing period enabled to verify and evaluate proposed methodology, which resulted in several subsequent modifi cations, and to train team editors and proofreaders.More specifi c issues of this phase covered harmonization of varying editorial practices in order to meet one common form of the term record.
Nowadays, the STD off ers more than 3300 terminological records that can be classifi ed by a circa 20 EUROVOC descriptors corresponding to specialized domains such as: Administrative Law, Astronomy, Bilingualism, Civil Security, Construction, Criminal Law, Criminology, Employment and Working Conditions, Fire Protection, History, Labour Law, Linguistics, Migration Policy, Private Law, Public order, Social Protection, Society and Demography etc.) with only a part of terminology fi elds completed, i.e. term and usually defi nition, source, less oft en synonym, sometimes related terms, and comment.Since January 2008 the team together with external collaborators started two partial terminology projects focused on social security and history.

Delimitation and structure of defi nition
"Defi nition is nothing else but the showing the meaning of one word by several other not synonymous terms,"2 wrote Johne Locke in 1689.However, within the realm of terminology, defi nition should not explain the meaning but clarify given concept and is usually defi ned as a microsystem consisting of hierarchically ordered characteristics of a concept.
Th ese characteristics or conceptual features maintaining relations of diff erent nature are supposed to refl ect the structure of a concept but as Seppälä (2004:37) points out they can never cover its totality.Th erefore, it is not unusual to fi nd several diff ering defi nitions for the same concept.It is a mental construct, a sort of a generalisation or synthesis and thus can never be exhaustive (see Analysis part).
It is common knowledge that every defi nition should consist of mutually substitutable parts -defi niendum and defi niens, the former being in our case the term and the latter represents the defi ning utterance containing defi ning elements of two kinds: classifying core and a handful of specifying information.According to numerous studies the conceptual structure of the defi nition, namely number of these specifying features and their order, depends on the very categorising element of this defi ning sentence -the Aristotelian genus proximus.However, the selection or nature of this classifying element is in turn the function of the knowledge level the participants of this communication -author and target public -have.
And fi nal remark to conclude this section, the only defi ning element, vital for the distinguishing of the concept, that is not be expressed in the defi nition is the respective fi eld the concept belong to.

Typology and purpose of defi nitions
Th e practice has recorded numerous typologies of defi nitions based on diff erent perspectives -e.g.function, conceptual structure, situation of use, formal composition, content, role, and editing practice, their choice being dictated especially by the target audience, aim of work and respective domain.
CONCEPTUAL STRUCTURE.Linguistic and terminological theory fosters traditional, most frequent and abovementioned Aristotelian defi nition also referred to as classical, intensional or comprehensive defi nition 3 , whose conceptual structure features nearest superordinate concept followed by specifi c features.Sager (1990:42) defi nes its function as follows: "systematically identifi es a concept with respect to all others in the particular subject fi eld".
Example from the STD: vodičský preukaz/driving licence -osvedčenie, ktorým sa preukazuje oprávnenie na vedenie motorového vozidla /certifi cate, which proves that one is entitled to drive a motor vehicle/4 Comprehensive defi nition has its counterpart in the extensional defi nition that ISO 740 defi nes as "an enumeration of all species which are all on the same level of abstraction".
3 ISO 740 "An intensional defi nition (in the classical sense) consist of a listing of the characteristics of the concept to be defi ned, i.e. the description of the intension of the concept.For this purpose the nearest genus that has either been defi ned already or can be expected to be generally known, and the characteristic(s) restricting (determining) this genus are given.One or several of these characteristics also diff erentiate the concept to be distinguished from other concepts of the same horizontal series".
Example from the STD: disciplinárne opatrenie/disciplinary measure -písomné pokarhanie, zníženie služobného platu až o 15 % na dobu najviac 3 mesiacov, zníženie hodnosti o jeden stupeň na dobu jedného roka, zákaz činnosti, prepadnutie veci /written censure, lowering of service salary by as much as 15 % for the period not longer than 3 months, degradation to lower rank for the period of one year, prohibition to undertake activities, confi scation of a thing/ However, it is a common phenomenon to fi nd so-called mixed defi nitions that usually consist of comprehensive as well as extensional part or feature other types of defi nitions -e.g.partitive 5 , functional 6 , etc. 7Another very frequent and useful typology (see Bessé 1996, Larivière 1996 etc.) is based not on the form but on the defi nition's object and on the type of outcome, in which the defi nition appears.It distinguishes encyclopaedic defi nition (provides a collection of knowledge concerning an object and is used in encyclopaedias), lexicographic one (explains the signifi ed by distinguishing their meanings and usage of language signs and employed in the dictionaries and also encyclopaedias) and fi nally terminological defi nition.Th e last one can be identifi ed only on the basis of its triple purpose, i.e. it enables to describe, to circumscribe and distinguish the concept within an organised system.
To characterise terminological defi nitions in conclusionthey can refer to the intension, extension of the concept, or its function but fi rst of all they should act as a pointer to both hierarchical and non-hierarchical relations between concepts within the same subject fi eld, which can be achieved by means of coherent elaboration (Faber 2001:196).Some authors also claim that this kind of defi nition should be prescriptive and didactic.

What is a quality terminological defi nition?
According to the metaphorical wording of Juan Sager (1990), defi nition is a "bridge between the term and its concept".Th is bridge, however, can be 5 Is a defi nition based on the enumeration of the concept that refer to the main parts of an object covered by a superordinate concept in a partitive relation.ISO 12620 6 A defi nition describing function or purpose of the defi ned concept/object of the extralinguistic world.
of various material, construction and stability because, as Hanks (2006:399) rightly points out: every defi nition "off ers an interpretation (or a menu of possible interpretations) of " a given term.Th e question is, of course, where are the limits of this interpretation and how to assure its applicability and quality of the defi nition itself.
Besides the criterion of authenticity of the source the theory of terminology suggests for defi nition creation following criteria : ACCURACY -refers to a defi nition that includes all essential 1. characteristics required for the concept identifi cation and distinction.However, if a defi nition does not comply with this criterion and the defi nitional work reveals to be incomplete, the result cannot be classifi ed as a defi nition but as a defi ning context 8 for it fulfi ls only one third of defi nition's functions -description.
CONSISTENCY and SYSTEMATICITY -refers to a defi nition that is 2. worded without contradiction and with respect to its internal coherence and to its interrelation with nearest concepts -e.g.many defi nitions contradict basics of terminology work for they comprise unknown, ambiguous or vague terms; OBJECTIVITY -in spite of certain inevitable subjectivity every 3. defi nition should aspire for objective and neutral wording.Acceptable degree of subjectivity results from the fact that human perception and knowledge of the world, its classifi cation and segmentation of the lexicon are interdependent within a synchronic point of view (see Rey-Debove 1971).Th erefore, defi nition naturally refl ects development of the science, thus of a concept.
ADEQUACY -level of the language used in the defi nition must take 4. into consideration the level of education of the target audience, if not it can be even completely useless; ECONOMY -defi ning statement should express and describe the 5. concept as condensely as possible.
UNDERSTANDABILITY -essential requirement related to all the 6. previous ones and aiming at functionality and eff ectiveness of the defi ning statement 8 Context is defi ned in the ISO 12620 as a "text which illustrates a concept or the use of a designation", or "a text or part of a text in which a term occurs" while defi ning context is considered by Canadian term base Termium as the one that brings a light on the distinctive characteristics of the concept.ISO 12320:1995 informs that it contains substantial information about a concept but does not possess the formal rigour of a defi nition.

Legal defi nitions
Let us tackle the specifi city of legal defi nitions.According to Kaczmarek and Matulewska (2006: 86) "legal defi nitions are those which are in statutory texts and which introduce an unknown term with the help of known terms".I would like to extend this textual characterisation of legal defi nitions to all "legal concepts" represented by terms regardless of the type of text they appear in.However, in order to avoid any misunderstanding, those taken from Slovak legislation and analysed in the second part will be referred to as "legislative defi nitions".
Zieliński distinguishes two fundamental functions of legal defi nition (2002:188-191): expressing the precise meaning of agents, things or conventional actions created by the legislator as well as eliminating ambiguity and vagueness by stipulating legal terms that: 1. come form the colloquial or general language; 2 are still in development; 3. have been borrowed from other languages; 4. have been borrowed from other LSPs.
However, one can raise the question if the elimination of ambiguity and reference to legal concepts are the only distinguishing features of legal defi nitions.Can we identify any structural and/or formal specifi cities? What kind of defi ning elements are essential for a legal defi nition?Can we rely on Solan's statement (2006): "the law is a classical defi nition in that it lists elements that are individually necessary and together suffi cient for a XY to have occurred"?And as far as their usage in a general terminology database like the STD is concerned, what is the best practice -copy-and-paste inclusion of Slovak legislative defi nitions or only aft er some kind of modifi cation?Let us remind that the purpose of not only legal defi nitions in the STD is to provide understandable expert knowledge.For some terminologists (see e.g.Da Graça Krieger 1996) warn that "laws are usually synthetic texts and their regulatory and sanctioning nature do not off er semantically rich contexts to provide satisfactory defi nitions".Moreover, legal terms might occur with diff erent meanings in diff erent legal contexts which creates ambiguities and is in direct contradiction to the requirement for accuracy.

Analysis of the conceptual structure of selected defi nitions
Th e second part of the paper is devoted to the analysis of conceptual structure of about 40 pairs of defi nitions -fi rst one comes from the terminology resource entitled the Law and Protection Terminology (hereinaft er referred to as LPT) compiled by a team of circa 25 authors from the Police Academy of Bratislava9 .Th e other element of the pair has been taken from the Slovak legislation and expresses same concept belonging to the fi eld of administrative law, private law, labour law or criminal law.We will try to evaluate the quality and functionality of these examples for the purpose of the STD.
As for the nature of defi ned concepts, they can be labelled as general legal ones and their terms appear also everyday in media and thus undergoing also the process of determinologisation.However, other legal concepts from the set of analysed terms were coined within the opposite tendency -coming from the general lexicon they acquired specifi c meaning in the fi eld of law (e.g.rozhodnutie/decision).Most of analysed defi nitions make explicit abstract concepts rather than concrete ones, which we classifi ed according to Seppälä typology of conceptual classes into activities, acts, entities, and groups.
1. First four analysed defi nitions belong according to authors to the realm of administrative law.Th ey refer to the related concepts expressing protection of diff erent agricultural properties instituted by the lawlesná stráž, rybárska stráž, stráž prírody, poľná stráž -as follows: Th e fi rst defi ning statement for each concept comes from LPT -three out of the four defi nitions can be labelled as functional.Apart from specifi c characteristic denoting purpose, they include locality and object characteristics.In comparison with legislative ones they lack the agent and time characteristics but in this case they do not seem to be essential.Th e fourth onestráž prírody -is incomplete for it lists some conditions for becoming a member of the specialised guard but no distinguishing features, that is why it could refer to any group/agentive concept.Th e terms also lack systematicity for their semantic motivation indicates that they are co-hyponymes but the wording of respective defi nitions do not clarify if this is the case or not -they feature three diff erent genus proximus.Th e reason might be that although coming from the same terminology resource they were actually taken from diff erent acts.
Each of abovementioned legislative defi ning statements lack classifying element and therefore we labelled them as defi ning contexts.Two of them are of functional nature while the most exhaustive and detailed one referring to the guard of nature is a partitive defi ning context and includes specifi c characteristics like agent, time, means but not the purpose.

Legislative defi nitions from the next pair reveal a typical thriving for exhaustiveness in legal acts:
utajované skutočnosti (classifi ed information) LPT DEFINITION: zákonom vymedzený okruh informácií alebo vecí, ktoré treba chrániť pred nepovolanými osobami alebo cudzou mocou /a pool of information or things defi ned by law that are to be protected against unauthorized persons or foreign power/ LEGISLATIVE DEFINITION: (Act n° 215/2004) informácie alebo veci určené pôvodcom utajovanej skutočnosti, ktoré vzhľadom na záujem Slovenskej republiky treba chrániť pred vyzradením, zneužitím, poškodením, neoprávneným rozmnožením, zničením, stratou alebo odcudzením a ktoré môžu vznikať len v oblastiach, ktoré ustanoví vláda Slovenskej republiky svojím nariadením /information or things determined by the author of classifi ed issue that, with respect to the interests of the Slovak Republic, are to protected against disclosure, misuse, damage, unauthorized copying, destruction, loss or theft and that can originate only within areas established by the government of the Slovak Republic by means of a directive/ LPT defi nition represents a simplifi ed version of the concept's verbal representation in comparison with its legislative counterpart which is of mixed character (enumerative+intensional). Both defi nitions express what is to be protected but while the fi rst one points out to the type of abusers, the legislative one lists all possible ways of misuse and at the same time emphasizes the origin and agent of the classifi cation of the information.

povolanie (call-up)
LPT DEFINITION: dočasná zmena v služobnom pomere policajta, pri ktorej ho minister povolá na plnenie úloh inšpekčnej služby /temporary change of employment of a policeman within which the minister calls him/her on to perform tasks of inspection service/ LEGISLATIVE DEFINITION: (Act n° 73/1998) minister môže na nevyhnutne potrebný čas povolať na plnenie úloh inšpekčnej služby policajta s jeho súhlasom, a to i na také činnosti, ktoré nevyplývajú z funkcie, do ktorej bol ustanovený alebo vymenovaný /minister can call on a policeman for a period of time necessary for the performance of inspection service tasks, with his/her agreement, and also for activities that do not arise from his/her function to which he/she has been nominated or appointed/ First legislative defi nition of these two interdomain homonymes lacks categorisation, but expresses agent/means characteristics, time and condition characteristics while the second one shows a formal defi ciency for it includes verb with the same root, which heavily impairs understandability -prevelenie => preveliť.

prevelenie (transfer)
LPT DEFINITION: dočasná zmena v služobnom pomere policajta, ktorú možno realizovať za zákonom stanovených podmienok i bez jeho súhlasu, ale iba na stanovený čas /temporary change of employment of a policeman that can be carried out in accordance with the conditions stipulated by the law even without his/her agreement but only for a determined period of time/ LEGISLATIVE DEFINITION: (Act n° 73/1998) policajta možno preveliť aj bez jeho súhlasu na plnenie úloh Policajného zboru uložených pri vyhlásení bezpečnostného opatrenia na ochranu života, zdravia alebo práv iných osôb na nevyhnutne potrebný čas /a policeman can be transferred even without his/her agreement for a period of time necessary for the performance of Police Forces tasks imposed in time of security measure declaration for the purpose of life, health or other persons's rights protection/ 3. Legislative defi nitions in the following pairs reveal the lack of categorisation, they mostly include characteristic of function; the fi rst two are based on enumeration of conditions and types respectively.Th eir LPT counterparts can boast a more consistent and transparent content not to mention exhaustiveness of essential characteristics:

rozhodnutie (decision)
LPT DEFINITION: individuálny správny akt, ktorým sa zasahuje do právnej situácie konkrétnej fyzickej alebo právnickej osoby /individual administrative act that intervenes into the legal situation of a concrete natural or legal person/ LEGISLATIVE DEFINITION: (Act n° 71/1967) musí byť v súlade so zákonmi a ostatnými právnymi predpismi, musí ho vydať orgán na to príslušný, musí vychádzať zo spoľahlivo zisteného stavu veci a musí obsahovať predpísané náležitosti /must comply with laws and other legal provisions, must be issued by an entitled authority, must be based on a reliably verifi ed state of things and must include required elements/ disciplinárne opatrenie (disciplinary measure) LPT DEFINITION: sankcia za disciplinárne previnenie policajta, ktorá sa ukladá najskôr v nasledujúci deň po spáchaní disciplinárneho previnenia a len do 30 dní odo dňa, keď sa o disciplinárnom previnení dozvedel ktorýkoľvek z nadriadených, najneskôr však do jedného roka odo dňa spáchania disciplinárneho previnenia /sanction for disciplinary wrongdoing of a policeman that is imposed at earliest on the following day aft er the disciplinary wrongdoing and only until 30 days aft er the day when any of his/her superiors learnt about the disciplinary wrongdoing, however until a year time at latest from the committing of the disciplinary wrongdoing/ LEGISLATIVE DEFINITION: (Act n° 73/1998) písomné pokarhanie, zníženie služobného platu až o 15 % na dobu najviac 3 mesiacov, zníženie hodnosti o jeden stupeň na dobu jedného roka, zákaz činnosti, prepadnutie veci /written censure, lowering of service salary by as much as 15 % for the period not longer than 3 months, degradation to lower rank for the period of one year, prohibition to undertake activities, confi scation of a thing/ pracovný poriadok (working guidelines) LPT DEFINITION: súčasť podnikových normatívnych aktov, vydávaný zamestnávateľom na základe ZP, konkretizuje jeho ustanovenia podľa vlastných osobitných podmienok za účelom špecifi kácie uplatňovania práv a povinností vyplývajúcich z pracovnoprávnych vzťahov, organizačnotechnologických predpisov, BOZP, atď./part of company's normative acts, issued by the employer on the basis of the Labour Code, which puts its provisions in concrete terms according to its own specifi c conditions for the purpose of the specifi cation of the exercise of rights and duties arising from the employer-employee relationships, organisation and technological regulations, industrial safety guidelines, etc./ LEGISLATIVE DEFINITION: (Act n° 311/2001) bližšie konkretizuje v súlade s právnymi predpismi ustanovenia Zákonníka práce podľa osobitných podmienok zamestnávateľa /provides more details in accordance with legal provisions of the Labour Code according to specifi c conditions of the employer/

Conclusion and further work
Analysed legislative defi ning statements 1. reveal to be rather defi ning contexts than defi nitions in comparison with LPT counterparts because of missing classifying elements -i.e.defi ning context 10 does not have to explicitly express superordinate genus term and all the essential characteristics but must include enough information to identify the concept; 10 In the Belgian terminology manual Recommandations relatives à la terminologie it is referred to as legal defi nition.
2. are mostly functional and enumerative in nature.Th eir enumerative character consists of listing detailed conditions that an act/activity/entity must comply with in order to be acknowledged as such by the law; 3. are more explicit than "classical" defi nitions; 4. sometimes lack generalisation for they were in some cases created for the sake of specifi c legal act, i.e. they correspond to stipulative defi nitions and therefore are less suitable for the STD needs.
As far as their form is concerned only a few legislative defi nitions can boast a rigorous form (minimal punctuation, no capital letters, no copula verbs, etc.) and meeting abovementioned criteria of economy.Moreover, a handful of them breach the basic rule not to use the same linguistic unit or its derivative both for the defi niendum as well as within the defi niens since it heavily impairs understandability.In several cases domain expert opted for the possibility to state two defi nitions for the same concept separated by a semi-colon for the sake of avoiding the slightest possible ambiguity and thus created redundancy.
Th e author is fully aware that presented analysis lacks substantial corpus of defi nitions especially with respect to diff erent branches of law and therefore requires to extend the research.Nevertheless, it enabled her to formulate following interim recommendations: Bearing in mind the character of analysed legislative defi ning statements, especially absence of classifying element and some of the essential characteristics the non-expert user can have problems to deduce the exact concept they express.For the sake of clarity and coherence it would be therefore desirable to state the genus explicitly.
In order to assure consistency and understandability we suggest as the fi rst step creation of terminological fi elds consisting of related terms/ concepts followed by an analysis and comparison of their defi nitions focusing on the inclusion/absence of classifying element, number and type of characteristics, which is a feasible activity also for a non-specialist.
However, none of these modifi cations would not be inserted into the STD without further documentation and especially consultation with specialists; their approval is always needed to gather additional data to enable the terminologist to build a legally accurate and linguistically satisfactory defi nition.

the protection of the exercise of
fi shing rights in the fi shing areas is the duty of the user; the user is obliged to propose to the community council fi shery guard for each fi shing area/