Archive of UserLand's first discussion group, started October 5, 1998.
Misconceptions about WordNet
Author: Kendall Posted: 2/23/1999; 10:49:51 AM Topic: Misconceptions about WordNet Msg #: 3164 Prev/Next: 3163 / 3165
Why isn't ``Aretha'' in WordNet? Probably because WordNet only resembles a dictionary in some respects, but isn't really meant to be a dictionary. In other words, whether ``Aretha'' belongs in any dictionary is not really a relevant question when asked about WordNet.It can be used a dictionary, but the ``definitions'' in WordNet should probably not be relied upon in the same way one would rely upon a standard reference work like the OED. WordNet *is* useful for determining semantic connections between sets of synonyms, for tracing morphological connections between words, as well as a whole host of other neat things.
WordNet supports a very rich set of lexical and linguistic queries, many of which are in fact useful for content creators. But its primary purpose is to support computational linguistics, text analysis, etc.
I do not rely on the glosses that WordNet contains as if they were entries in some standard dictionary, and certainly not for formal or rigorous writing tasks.
If you're interested in learning more about WordNet, I can recommend the very good book, WordNet: An Electronic Lexical Database, by Christiane Fellbaum. I read it over the Christmas holidays and found it very useful. There are two versions of this book, one of which contains a CD-ROM with WordNet bundled.
Rather than buying the more expensive book with CD-ROM, I downloaded the entire WordNet database from the Princeton site and installed it on a Linux server on my local network. This is a rather more judicious and fair use of Princeton's computing resources, in my view, than querying their server directly. That's just my opinion of course.
Note: I'm not associated with WordNet or the Cognitive Science department at Princeton; I've just been using it in The Casbah Project to build an XML-based agent framework for content creators. WordNet in this usage is rather more like Cyc's Upper Ontology than a dictionary.
Best,
Kendall Clark
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