Structure of the thesaurus

Classes
Each class forms a structured grouping of descriptors and non-descriptors around a top term.

• Organisations and people, Organismes et professionnels, Agentes colectivos e individuales .
  Termes généralement employés pour les organismes et professionnels impliqués dans le patrimoine, par exemple "autorité locale" Si un terme concerne plutôt un savoir faire, il se trouve dans le groupe 6 "Professional training, skills and qualifications, Formation, métiers, compétences, Formacion y cualificacion".

• Heritage Category, Catégories de biens culturels, Tipos de bienes
  Catégories et objets ayant un lien avec le patrimoine, par exemple "Bienes de interés cultural".

• Documentation, Documentation, Documentacion.
  Outils, références, normes relatifs à la créationde documentation par exemple "computerized database"

• Legal systems, Système légal, Sistema legal
  Termes utilisés pour représentés des concepts législatifs, par exemple "mesure répressive". Il contient également les politiques, l'application d'une politique se trouverait plutôt dans le groupe 5 "Interventions / Interventions / Intervenciones".

• Interventions, Interventions, Intervenciones
  Actions menées dans le domaine du patrimoine, par exemple "excavaciones arqueológicas". Ce groupe comprend l'action d'appliquer une politique, mais non la politique elle-même qui se trouverait plutôt dans le groupe 4 "Legal systems / Système légal / Sistema legal".

• Professional training, skills and qualifications, Formation, métiers, compétences, Formacion y cualificacion
  Termes relatifs à des compétences, métiers et formations en lien avec le patrimoine, par exemple "art restorer".

• Access and Interpretation, Communication et sensibilisation des publics, Comunicacion y sensibilizacion
  Termes liés à la diffusion et l'interprétation du patrimoine, par exemple "programme scolaire".

• Economic and Financial systems, Système économique et financier, Aspectos económico – financieros
  Termes évoquant des notions financières et des activités économiques, par exemple "ayudas públicas".

• Broad concepts, Concepts généraux, Conceptos generales
  Concepts généraux liés au patrimoine, par exemple "archaeologie".

Descriptors
A descriptor, also called preferred term, is the term which is meant to represent a given concept used for indexing or retrieval.

Non-descriptors
A non-descriptor, also called non-preferred term, corresponds to a concept which is very close to that covered by the descriptor. For the user, it acts as an additional access to the thesaurus by pointing to the appropriate preferred term. The number of non-preferred terms varies from one language to the other.

Relationships

1. Hierarchical Relationships
The terms of the thesaurus are gathered into nine classes which represent nine top terms around which concepts are organized. Hierarchical relationships are the same in all linguistic versions of the thesaurus.

Example :
protection du paysage: its broader term is protection which belongs to class 4 called legal systems; its narrower terms are: protection du littoral and protection de la montagne.
Though rarely chosen, in some specific cases poly-hierarchy allows the inclusion of the same term into different classes; for example archeologue and architecte are present in the thesaurus as both agents (class 1) and skills (class 6).

2. Equivalence relationships
his relationship enables us to broaden the terminological content of the thesaurus. When two or more terms are taken to refer to the same concept, they form a set of equivalent terms. The descriptor, or preferred term, corresponds to the term selected to express the concept used for indexing, while the non-descriptor(s) act(s) as (a) pointer(s) which leads the user to the term selected. Those non-descriptors may also cover the natural language used by the authors of the reports. An equivalence relationship can only exist within a single language. Hence, the number of non-descriptors varies from one language to another.

Examples :
arqueologia submarina USE arqueologia subacuatica
TVA USE Taxe sur la Valeur Ajoutée
death duty USE tax
corporation tax USE tax

3. Associative relationships
his relationship enables two terms closely related to each other by a semantic proximity but belonging to different classes to be linked. In other words, terms are associated; it is a reciprocal relationship. Associative relationships are the same for each linguistic version of the thesaurus. Two terms cannot be linked by both a hierarchical and an associative relationship.

Examples :
There is an associative relationship between the following terms:

• autorisation de travaux (class 4 Legal System) / travaux de restauration (class 5 Intervention)
• conservateur (class 1 Agents) / formation des conservateurs (class 6 Professional training, skills and qualifications)

4. Linguistic equivalence relationship
The HEREIN thesaurus was constructed ab initio; in other words, the multilingual vocabulary was selected with no direct reference to the terms or to the structure of a pre-existing thesaurus. It does not correspond to the translation of a monolingual thesaurus or to the action of bringing together pre-existing thesauri developed in the different languages. Hence, the level of linguistic equivalence among terms cannot be established a priori; it needs to be defined in common by the different linguistic teams. The actual writing of the scope notes will help to specify these relationships. The definition and scope of all the terms in each language is indeed required to establish their degree of equivalence.

Five types of equivalence relationships are specified in the ISO 5964 standard:

A/ exact equivalence:
Terms from the source and target languages have the same meaning and scope.
A=B

B/ inexact equivalence:
The term from the target language has a similar meaning but a different scope than the term from the source language; it corresponds to an "approached term".
A≈B

examples :
historic settlement = asentamientos historicos ≈ site de peuplement

C/ partial equivalence :
The term from the source language is larger than the term from the target language or vice versa.
AÌB (included) or BÌA (included)

example :
instalaciones (source language) Ì immeuble par destination (target language)

D/ single-to-multiple term equivalence :
The concept to which the source language term refers is expressed by a combination of two or more terms in the target language.
A=B+C

exemple :
listed building (source language) = édifice inscrit + édifice classé (target language)

E/ non-equivalence :
The target language doesn't have any term which corresponds to the source language, either with partial or with inexact meaning. In this case, it is possible to replace the non-equivalence by a loan term (borrowed from the source language) or by a coined term (translation of the term from the source language).

example :
patrimoine pariétal (source language) ; parietal heritage (target language)