Semantic Interpretation and the Upper-Level Ontology of Wordnet

Fernando Gomez

School of Computer Science, University of Central Florida Orlando, Florida 32816, USA.

Abstract

This paper deals with the ontology for natural language understanding. In particular, the paper focuses on the WordNet noun ontology, proposes some additions, changes and reorganizations, and explains the rationale supporting them. These changes have been pointed out by a semantic interpreter driven by over 3000 verb predicates that use WordNet noun ontology and WordNet verb classes. The selectional restrictions in the semantic roles of the predicates are WordNet ontological categories. The main criterion for changing an ontological category has been failing to interpret some sentences. A detailed analysis of the proposed changes is presented.

Key Words

lexical ontology, WordNet, natural language understanding, cognitive science