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Re: [ontolog-forum] web-syllogism-and-worldview

To: "[ontolog-forum] " <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
From: "Richard H. McCullough" <rhm@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Date: Mon, 20 Apr 2009 17:49:35 -0700
Message-id: <728E4C06AA714A70AF42EE0341459DDB@rhm8200>
You consistently said mapping from WordNet to xxx.
Do you realize that OpenCyc is mapping from its
concepts to WordNet?    (01)

Dick McCullough
http://mkrmke.org
----- Original Message ----- 
From: "Patrick Cassidy" <pat@xxxxxxxxx>
To: "'[ontolog-forum] '" <ontolog-forum@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 5:08 PM
Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] web-syllogism-and-worldview    (02)


> Dick,
>  A 'synset' is just a mechanism for representing what the author hopes is 
> a
> relatively well-defined concept.   Any ontology that has pointers to words
> in a human language will form the basis for a 'language that uses 
> synsets',
> if the ontology allows pointers to more than one word for each represented
> concept.
>   WordNet is used that way by NL researchers, but its shortcomings in that
> role have been much remarked.  It was originally intended to represent
> cognitive insights into the use of language, but was pressed into service
> for NL research because it was free and was fairly comprehensive for
> English, and had a hierarchical structure unavailable in any other free
> resource at the time it was first used.   I think that NL research needs a
> reworked 'WordNet' with the concepts better structured for automated
> inferencing.  That is one of the functions that I hope the COSMO (or some
> successor) will serve, so I am adding in pointers to WordNet synsets as 
> well
> as the LDOCE defining vocabulary, but there is no simple mapping of a good
> ontology to WordNet because the WordNet structure is not based on 
> principles
> of inheritance; so a simple 'mapping' of WordNet to an ontology like Cyc 
> or
> SUMO is of limited usefulness, and does not correct the problems.
>
> Efforts to rework the WordNet have been made by groups such as Ed Hovy's 
> and
> Martha Palmer's and Nicola Guarino's, but they haven't yet been extended 
> to
> create the ontologically correct variant of the WordNet.  That's a lot of
> work.  What I am trying to do is to create a version of COSMO that at 
> least
> maps the basic words representing the semantic primitives (and some other
> useful basic concepts), using the LDOCE defining vocabulary as a plausible
> starting list that includes most of the  semantic primitives.  This will
> allow experiments with NL, confined to the basic vocabulary, but aimed at 
> a
> deeper level of semantic representation than is possible with the WordNet.
> This is one tactic I want to use to approach the goal of getting a 
> computer
> to have a meaningful conversation with a 6-year old.
>
> Among the problems with the current WordNet, from an ontological
> perspective:
>  (1) in linguistic use a single word is often used to represent some
> general concept and also a more specific concept.  WordNet does not allow 
> a
> word to be a hypernyms of itself, so they cannot represent such relations.
>  (2) different synsets containing the same word are often 
> indistinguishable
> in logical meaning.  The NL people refer to this by stating that WordNet 
> is
> 'too fine-grained' - a polite way of saying they can't figure out the
> differences in meaning between some different synsets (and I can't either,
> so I conclude that they are in fact logically identical or largely
> overlapping in meaning).
>  (3) some synsets include more than one meaning that are clearly
> distinguishable logically.  This means that just aggregating WordNet 
> senses
> will not create the hierarchy that is optimal for NLU.
> (4) the meanings, or parts of the meanings, of synsets that have no word 
> in
> common can also overlap or be identical.
> (5) the representation of an Event in COSMO will often map to both a noun
> and a verb (e.g. move and motion).  The linguistic/syntactic distinction 
> is
> not necessary at the logical level, and is best left as a task for the NLU
> program to handle rather than the knowledge representation. In WordNet 
> they
> are different synsets.
>  (6) the hierarchy is, in many places, not properly structured for
> inheritance of properties, and cannot be used for accurate logical
> inference.
>
>  But WordNet still represents a tremendous and useful effort, and is 
> useful
> for NL at a shallow semantic level.  It is a good start, but something
> similar with a more precise semantics is needed.
>
> Pat
>
> Patrick Cassidy
> MICRA, Inc.
> 908-561-3416
> cell: 908-565-4053
> cassidy@xxxxxxxxx
>
>
>> -----Original Message-----
>> From: ontolog-forum-bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx [mailto:ontolog-forum-
>> bounces@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx] On Behalf Of Richard H. McCullough
>> Sent: Monday, April 20, 2009 4:11 PM
>> To: [ontolog-forum]
>> Subject: Re: [ontolog-forum] web-syllogism-and-worldview
>>
>> John
>>
>> How about a language that uses synsets instead of words?
>> Do you know if anyone has researched that?
>>
>> A synset is an equivalence class, similar to your
>> definition of proposition.
>>
>> Dick McCullough
>> http://mkrmke.org
>>
>> ----- Original Message -----
>> From: "John F. Sowa" <sowa@xxxxxxxxxxx>
>> >
>> > The simple reason is that mathematics of any kind (including symbolic
>> > logic) makes statements with sharp, absolute criteria of precision.
>> > (Even fuzzy logic and probability theory make precise statements
>> > about fuzziness and probabilities.)  In the initial unsettled stages
>> > of research, such precision is impossible.  It's also impossible to
>> > quantify the exact amount of fuzziness.  That's why ordinary language
>> > is far better suited to the *development* of a theory than to the
>> > final statement of the theory.
>> >
>>
>>
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>     (03)


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