Al Qamus al Muhit, a Medieval Arabic Lexicon in LMF

This paper describes the conversion into LMF, a standard lexicographic digital format of ’al-qamus al-muh it., a Medieval Arabic lexicon. The lexicon is first described, then all the steps required for the conversion are illustrated. The work is will produce a useful lexicographic resource for Arabic NLP, but is also interesting per se, to study the implications of adapting the LMF model to the Arabic language. Some reflections are offered as to the status of roots with respect to previously suggested representations. In particular, roots are, in our opinion are to be not treated as lexical entries, but modeled as lexical metadata for classifying and identifying lexical entries. In this manner, each root connects all entries that are derived from it.