Constructing a linguistic resource of verbs : an ontology engineering approach
以知識本體工程學建構針對動詞的知識庫
Student thesis: Doctoral Thesis
Author(s)
Detail(s)
Awarding Institution | |
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Award date | 2 Oct 2008 |
Link(s)
Permanent Link | https://scholars.cityu.edu.hk/en/theses/theses(98d1044b-1ad7-4c65-84a7-6266f1ae059f).html |
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Other link(s) | Links |
Abstract
This research constructs a linguistic resource in the form of a knowledge
base which automatically classifies English verbs into semantic categories
referred to as types of Processes in Systemic Functional Grammar (SFG)
(Halliday, 1994 & 2004). The Semantics of the verb as process is described and
explained both in terms of its computational realization in an ontological
framework and in terms of latent connections across various different linguistic
resources. Each Process type is instantiated with English verbs. Lexical data has
been imported from WordNet (Fellbaum, 1988) including more than 11,000 verb
lemma and 13,650 sense entries, a total of 24,890 lemma-sense pairs.
This research presents the semantics of verbs in an ontological knowledge
representation. The semantics description is modeled based on SFG in a concept
hierarchy in which the concepts are explicitly defined in an interrelated network
environment. Lexical data included in the ontological knowledge base on the
other hand not only serves as a dictionary database but also links to the SFG
concepts Process which enable axiomatic exploration to the whole systemic
framework defined in the knowledge base.
Verb semantic classification is the main issue in the construction of the
knowledge base. The problem is resolved by interoperation of two linguistic
resources, WordNet and FrameNet (Baker et al, 1998), and two ontologies:
Generalized Upper Model (Bateman, 1995) and Suggested Upper Merged
Ontology (Niles and Pease, 2001). Cognitive categorization modeling including
prototypes, feature frequency and family resemblances are applied in the
implementation of automatic categorization. The four systemic Process types –
Material Process, Mental Process, Verbal Process and Relational Process – form
the four semantic categories and this research aims at categorizing the 11,000
verbs from WordNet into these four categories. This research also aims at defining
an explicit and delicate description of the Experiential Meaning in SFG. The
semantics of Experiential Meaning is ontologically defined and linked with verbs
classified in the four systemic Process types forming a linguistic resource
comprising both theoretical meta-concepts and intensive instances of English verbs.
All exploited resources are ontologically mapped and consolidated into a
unified resource. This allows the process of semantic categorization to be
automated by various ontology engineering methodologies including ontology
mapping, conceptual relations, semantic similarity and clustering, the application
of axiom and inferences.
Knowledge included in the generated knowledge base extends the mapped
ontology and databases into a semantic network elaborated in terms of the
semantic properties described in Systemic Functional Grammar. Data is drawn
from FrameNet, WordNet and SUMO, together they provide intensive dictionary
information, case frames of verbs, lexical relations among verb, encyclopedic
world knowledge and the systemic semantic categories of English verbs. The
constructed knowledge base explains the meaning of verbs throughout in the
lexical semantic layer and the clausal conceptual layer. A web-based data
accessible interface serves as a data retrieval tool for the knowledge base is
developed and available at http://wcm.cityu.edu.hk/ctian/process/, with which
users can pose queries about the lexicographical information of English verbs and
their semantic categories.
- Ontology, Verb, English language