On Tue, April 2, 2013 18:23, Simon Spero wrote:
> On Tue, Apr 2, 2013 at 2:11 PM, Barkmeyer, Edward J <
> edward.barkmeyer@xxxxxxxx> wrote: (01)
>> There is nothing inaccurate about having the term "pineapple tree" in
>> your ontology. (02)
The terms in an ontology are not the NL terms. They (should) have
mappings to NL terms -- a big difference. Thus, there is nothing wrong
in having the NL term "pineapple tree" map to a term (or several terms)
in your ontology. (03)
The term in the ontology might mean a type of supermarket fruit display,
a depiction of a tree carved out of a pineapple, or a wedding table
decoration (http://pinterest.com/emeritussl/how-to-make-a-pineapple-tree/
http://marietta-georgia.olx.com/pictures/pineapple-palm-tree-tropical-fruit-display-kit-iid-102707133
). (04)
The definitions and assertions about the term in the ontology should be
checked for someone looking at the ontology to determine the meaning. (05)
>> The inaccuracy would be in saying that it is a subtype of
>> "tree", assuming that we all agree on the definition of "tree". The
>> assumption that the word "tree" appearing in the term "pineapple tree"
>> implies some well-defined relationship is unwarranted. This is the kind
>> of thing that comes from trying to guess what is meant by looking at
>> natural language cues. Sometimes you guess wrong! (06)
> The meaning of the phrase *pineapple tree* is endocentric - that is to
> say, the meaning of the whole is derived from its constituent parts. (07)
Here we move away from ontology to NL. (08)
Of course, there are various NL patterns that could suggest what the
term may mean, given its parts. (09)
> It is is about as close to canonical an English noun-noun compound as they
> get
> (which isn't very). (010)
Exactly. (011)
> 1. It is right headed (*tree* is the head noun, and *pineapple* is the
> modifier).
> 2. The specialization in meaning obtained via the modifier is the
> prototypical specialization for other modifiers in the same general
> category (an *apple tree* is a *tree* on which *apple*s grow; a *cherry
> tree* is a *tree * on which *cherries *grow. (012)
I note (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Strawberry_tree) there are
*strawberry tree*s which produce fruit, and strawberries are fruit. (013)
Families certainly grow. Do they grow on *family tree*s? (014)
> 3. If pineapples grew on trees, they would grow on pineapple trees. (015)
So ... if pine cones grew on trees they would grow on pine cone trees
(conifers include pines, but also other members of the pine family
(which includes spruce and other non-pines) and the cypress family
(including redwoods). And if acorns grew on trees they would
grow on acorn trees!? (016)
One must generalize from "tree" to (maybe stemmed rooted plant) to
include pineapple plants. Metaphor allows this. (017)
However, we are discussing NL techniques, not ontological techniques
here. (018)
> There is considerable difference between *pineapple tree* and *syntax tree
> *;
> one would not expect to be able to build a *tree house* in the latter, nor
> to hang a *bird house* from its branches. (019)
One could not build a *tree house* in *pineapple tree* nor hang a
*bird house* from its branches, either. (020)
> *Fake diamond *is much more complicated to analyze. Syntactically,
> *diamond
> * is still the head, but semantically, modifier *fake *carries with it
> the
> partial meaning that it is something that has a very strong superficial
> resemblance to a *real diamond,* but which lacks some critical property.
> The common super-ordinate category would appear to be things which
> resemble diamonds.
>
> More complicated still is the case of *toys. * A *toy dog* is a
> *toy*shaped like a *dog*, but a *toy poodle* is a dog
> (and a *dog toy* is a *toy *for use by dogs).
>
> For more fun, consider *White tigers, Paper tigers, Paper Airplanes*,
> and *Model
> airplanes. *
> *
> *
> For one take on just N-N compounds,
> http://books.google.com/books/about/Ordered_Chaos.html?id=veBBTN6PwU4C (021)
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