WordNet
"WordNet® is an online lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets.
WordNet was developed by the Cognitive Science Laboratory at Princeton University under the direction of Professor George A. Miller (Principal Investigator)." (WordNet, 2005).
Wordnets have been created in dozens of other languages. The Global WordNet Organization is coordinating and guiding new the development of new wordnets
EuroWordNet is an European pendant: A multilingual database, based on a project, which was completed in the summer of 1999. It contains wordnets for Dutch, Italian, Spanish, German, French, Czech and Estonian. The wordnets are structured in the same way as the American wordnet for English (Princeton WordNet) in terms of sets of synonymous words with basic semantic relations between them. Each wordnet represents a unique language-internal system of lexicalizations. In addition, the wordnets are linked to an Inter-Lingual-Index, based on the Princeton wordnet. Via this index, the languages are interconnected so that it is possible to go from the words in one language to similar words in any other language. The index also gives access to a shared top-ontology of 63 semantic distinctions.
Literature:
Fellbaum, C. (Ed.). (1998). WordNet: An Electronic Database. MIT Press.
Miller, G. (1990). WordNet: An On-line Lexical Database. International Journal of Lexiography, 3(4), 235-312.
Miller, G. (1995). WordNet: A Lexical Database for English. Communication of the ACM, 38(11), 39-41.
Richardson, R.; Smeaton, A. F. & Murphy, J. (1994), Using WordNet as Knowledge Base for Measuring Semantic Similarity between Words. Technical Report CA-1294, Dublin City University, School of Computer Applications.
http://www.illc.uva.nl/EuroWordNet/
WordNet: http://wordnet.princeton.edu/
WordNet bibliography: http://mira.csci.unt.edu/~wordnet/
Birger Hjørland
Last edited: 11-02-2007