The desire to construct robust and portable natural language systems has led to research o n how a core vocabulary for such systems can be defined. Stalistical methods and semantic criteria for doing this arc discussed and compared. Currcnlly it docs not seem possible to precisely define the notion of core vocabulary, but it is argued that workable criteria can nevertheless be ['. l:inally it is emplmsized that the implementation of a core vt~cabulary must be seen as a long-range research prt~gram rather than as a short-term goal. .
