Re: [ontolog-forum] What goes into a Lexicon?

[Amanda Vizedom <amanda.vizedom@xxxxxxxxx>]

David,

On Sun, Feb 19, 2012 at 10:41, David Eddy <deddy@xxxxxxxxxxxxx> wrote:

At one point I entertained delusions that ontologies would help with this issue (one conceptual label = many physical labels).  Obviously I no longer hope in that direction.

That's a shame, and a failure of the ontologies you've worked with. Many ontologies and applications exist that *do* help with this.  From federated information integration to multilingual search and retrieval to cross-domain (or even just multi-user-type) systems of all sorts, there are numerous existing ontology usages in which the ability to help with this issue is a key benefit of ontologies and a critical part of the application's success.

There are also plenty of insufficiently trained ontologists who do not understand the concept/_expression_ distinction sufficiently.  I have been known to have long technical discussions in which I ban the use of "term" "vocabulary" and several other expressions that are, in practice, ambiguous between the conceptual thing and the lexical thing; that was an extreme action necessitated by a lack of consistent understanding across the development team, such that some would revert to thinking of ontological things lexically. That meant both applying unsuitable design criteria to the ontology *and* failing to capture the lexical expressions and relationship appropriately. Not to mention massive bog-downs as people debate what "location" "really means", when there is no ontological conflict; there are simply multiple, distinct, and significant concepts which should be captured in the ontology, defined sufficiently (in formalisms, not just text annotations) to capture the differences between them, and mapped lexically (i.e., given the label, etc.) to "location." 

This is often a training and personnel issue. It is also, IMNSHO, one of the areas in which ontology as a field can improve by developing explicit dimensions of ontology requirement specification and explicit, experience- and research-backed guidelines regarding ontology features and characteristics that are suitable or necessary for an ontology that must meet those various requirements.

Amanda 

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