Free vector lattices over vector spaces

We show that free vector lattices over vector spaces can be realised in a natural fashion as vector lattices of real-valued functions. The argument is inspired by earlier work by Bleier, with some analysis in locally convex topological vector spaces added. Using this fact for free vector lattices over vector spaces, we can improve the well-known result that free vector lattices over non-empty sets can be realised as vector lattices of real-valued functions. For infinite sets, the underlying spaces for such realisations can be chosen to be much smaller than the usual ones.