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wngloss(7WN) - phpMan
WNGLOSS(7WN) WordNet™ WNGLOSS(7WN)
NAME
wngloss - glossary of terms used in WordNet system
DESCRIPTION
The WordNet Reference Manual consists of Unix-style manual pages divided into sections as
follows:
┌────────┬─────────────────────────────────────────┐
│Section │ Description │
├────────┼─────────────────────────────────────────┤
│ 1 │ WordNet User Commands │
│ 3 │ WordNet Library Functions │
│ 5 │ WordNet File Formats │
│ 7 │ Miscellaneous Information about WordNet │
└────────┴─────────────────────────────────────────┘
System Description
The WordNet system consists of lexicographer files, code to convert these files into a
database, and search routines and interfaces that display information from the database.
The lexicographer files organize nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs into groups of syn‐
onyms, and describe relations between synonym groups. grind(1WN) converts the lexicogra‐
pher files into a database that encodes the relations between the synonym groups. The
different interfaces to the WordNet database utilize a common library of search routines
to display these relations. Note that the lexicographer files and grind(1WN) program are
not generally distributed.
Database Organization
Information in WordNet is organized around logical groupings called synsets. Each synset
consists of a list of synonymous words or collocations (eg. "fountain pen", "take in"),
and pointers that describe the relations between this synset and other synsets. A word or
collocation may appear in more than one synset, and in more than one part of speech. The
words in a synset are grouped such that they are interchangeable in some context.
Two kinds of relations are represented by pointers: lexical and semantic. Lexical rela‐
tions hold between semantically related word forms; semantic relations hold between word
meanings. These relations include (but are not limited to) hypernymy/hyponymy (superordi‐
nate/subordinate), antonymy, entailment, and meronymy/holonymy.
Nouns and verbs are organized into hierarchies based on the hypernymy/hyponymy relation
between synsets. Additional pointers are be used to indicate other relations.
Adjectives are arranged in clusters containing head synsets and satellite synsets. Each
cluster is organized around antonymous pairs (and occasionally antonymous triplets). The
antonymous pairs (or triplets) are indicated in the head synsets of a cluster. Most head
synsets have one or more satellite synsets, each of which represents a concept that is
similar in meaning to the concept represented by the head synset. One way to think of the
adjective cluster organization is to visualize a wheel, with a head synset as the hub and
satellite synsets as the spokes. Two or more wheels are logically connected via antonymy,
which can be thought of as an axle between the wheels.
Pertainyms are relational adjectives and do not follow the structure just described. Per‐
tainyms do not have antonyms; the synset for a pertainym most often contains only one word
or collocation and a lexical pointer to the noun that the adjective is "pertaining to".
Participial adjectives have lexical pointers to the verbs that they are derived from.
Adverbs are often derived from adjectives, and sometimes have antonyms; therefore the
synset for an adverb usually contains a lexical pointer to the adjective from which it is
derived.
See wndb(5WN) for a detailed description of the database files and how the data are repre‐
sented.
GLOSSARY OF TERMS
Many terms used in the WordNet Reference Manual are unique to the WordNet system. Other
general terms have specific meanings when used in the WordNet documentation. Definitions
for many of these terms are given to help with the interpretation and understanding of the
reference manual, and in the use of the WordNet system.
In following definitions word is used in place of word or collocation.
adjective cluster A group of adjective synsets that are organized around antonymous
pairs or triplets. An adjective cluster contains two or more
head synsets which represent antonymous concepts. Each head
synset has one or more satellite synsets.
attribute A noun for which adjectives express values. The noun weight is
an attribute, for which the adjectives light and heavy express
values.
base form The base form of a word or collocation is the form to which
inflections are added.
basic synset Syntactically, same as synset. Term is used in wninput(5WN) to
help explain differences in entering synsets in lexicographer
files.
collocation A collocation in WordNet is a string of two or more words, con‐
nected by spaces or hyphens. Examples are: man-eating shark,
blue-collar, depend on, line of products. In the database files
spaces are represented as underscore (_) characters.
coordinate Coordinate terms are nouns or verbs that have the same hypernym.
cross-cluster pointer A semantic pointer from one adjective cluster to another.
derivationally related forms
Terms in different syntactic categories that have the same root
form and are semantically related.
direct antonyms A pair of words between which there is an associative bond
resulting from their frequent co-occurrence. In adjective clus‐
ters, direct antonyms appears only in head synsets.
domain A topical classification to which a synset has been linked with a
CATEGORY, REGION or USAGE pointer.
domain term A synset belonging to a topical class. A domain term is further
identified as being a CATEGORY_TERM, REGION_TERM or USAGE_TERM.
entailment A verb X entails Y if X cannot be done unless Y is, or has been,
done.
exception list Morphological transformations for words that are not regular and
therefore cannot be processed in an algorithmic manner.
group Verb senses that similar in meaning and have been manually
grouped together.
gloss Each synset contains gloss consisting of a definition and option‐
ally example sentences.
head synset Synset in an adjective cluster containing at least one word that
has a direct antonym.
holonym The name of the whole of which the meronym names a part. Y is a
holonym of X if X is a part of Y.
hypernym The generic term used to designate a whole class of specific
instances. Y is a hypernym of X if X is a (kind of) Y.
hyponym The specific term used to designate a member of a class. X is a
hyponym of Y if X is a (kind of) Y.
indirect antonym An adjective in a satellite synset that does not have a direct
antonym has an indirect antonyms via the direct antonym of the
head synset.
instance A proper noun that refers to a particular, unique referent (as
distinguished from nouns that refer to classes). This is a spe‐
cific form of hyponym.
lemma Lower case ASCII text of word as found in the WordNet database
index files. Usually the base form for a word or collocation.
lexical pointer A lexical pointer indicates a relation between words in synsets
(word forms).
lexicographer file Files containing the raw data for WordNet synsets, edited by lex‐
icographers, that are input to the grind program to generate a
WordNet database.
lexicographer id (lex id)
A decimal integer that, when appended onto lemma, uniquely iden‐
tifies a sense within a lexicographer file.
monosemous Having only one sense in a syntactic category.
meronym The name of a constituent part of, the substance of, or a member
of something. X is a meronym of Y if X is a part of Y.
part of speech WordNet defines "part of speech" as either noun, verb, adjective,
or adverb. Same as syntactic category.
participial adjective An adjective that is derived from a verb.
pertainym A relational adjective. Adjectives that are pertainyms are usu‐
ally defined by such phrases as "of or pertaining to" and do not
have antonyms. A pertainym can point to a noun or another per‐
tainym.
polysemous Having more than one sense in a syntactic category.
polysemy count Number of senses of a word in a syntactic category, in WordNet.
postnominal A postnominal adjective occurs only immediately following the
noun that it modifies.
predicative An adjective that can be used only in predicate positions. If X
is a predicate adjective, it can only be used in such phrases as
"it is X" and never prenominally.
prenominal An adjective that can occur only before the noun that it modi‐
fies: it cannot be used predicatively.
satellite synset Synset in an adjective cluster representing a concept that is
similar in meaning to the concept represented by its head synset.
semantic concordance A textual corpus (e.g. the Brown Corpus) and a lexicon (e.g.
WordNet) so combined that every substantive word in the text is
linked to its appropriate sense in the lexicon via a semantic
tag.
semantic tag A pointer from a word in a text file to a specific sense of that
word in the WordNet database. A semantic tag in a semantic con‐
cordance is represented by a sense key.
semantic pointer A semantic pointer indicates a relation between synsets (con‐
cepts).
sense A meaning of a word in WordNet. Each sense of a word is in a
different synset.
sense key Information necessary to find a sense in the WordNet database. A
sense key combines a lemma field and codes for the synset type,
lexicographer id, lexicographer file number, and information
about a satellite's head synset, if required. See senseidx(5WN)
for a description of the format of a sense key.
subordinate Same as hyponym.
superordinate Same as hypernym.
synset A synonym set; a set of words that are interchangeable in some
context without changing the truth value of the preposition in
which they are embedded.
troponym A verb expressing a specific manner elaboration of another verb.
X is a troponym of Y if to X is to Y in some manner.
unique beginner A noun synset with no superordinate.
WordNet 3.0 Dec 2006 WNGLOSS(7WN)
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