SUO: 2000-7-26 example
>>Perhaps as an example, in identifying the meaning of "executive" in
>>the following sentence, it will probably not be useful to identify
>>merely events, properties, attributes, classes, actions and
>>similar. Instead, one needs at least domain specific knowledge
>>about possible concepts (and their linguistic realizations) in the
>>field of "politics".
>>"On his arrival in Belfast, there was no sign of an end to the deep
>>divisions between Sinn Fein and the Ulster Unionists on the
>>formation of a new executive for Northern Ireland and on the
>>decommissioning of all paramilitary weapons."
>>Nevertheless, I understand the objective of the SUO project is to
>>define higher levels first which will give anchors for lower level,
>>domain specific ontologies. This is a reasonable objective,
>>although it may be more effective to start from the lower levels
>>and combine, merge them at an appropriate time
>>into a more abstract higher level ontology.
>>
>>
>> Paul Buitelaar
>> DFKI Language Technology
>> Saarbrücken, Germany
>>
>> http://www.dfki.de/~paulb/
This example shows the need to consider domain-specific uses
of words eg use of executive in UK politics. The meaning is
defined by statute to be :
http://www.hmso.gov.uk/acts/acts1998/80047--d.htm#20
or "cabinet" in the US.
Adam Pease below argues the example shows that a standard ontology
could help disambiguate 2 common senses of executive ie manager
(person) and administration (governing body). Since a person
cannot form another person, the meaning must be administration.
Maybe not, because Section 20 says the executive is comprised
of people (first minister, deputy, and others).Why should a
reasoner know that a person cannot form these people either?
yy
-------included message---------------
From: apease
To: Paul Buitelaar ; SUO
Subject: Re: [Fwd: Call for vote on SUO Scope and Purpose]
Date: Saturday, July 22, 2000 2:38 AM
Paul,
I may have misunderstood your example, but it seems to me an
excellent
example in fact of how an upper ontology could assist in
disambiguating
natural language.
If we formulate your example sentence loosely as
(instance-of Formulate-Token1 CreationAction)
(performedBy Formulate-Token1 SinnFein)
(performedBy Formulate-Token1 UlsterUnionists)
(objectActedOn Formulate-Token1 Executive-Lexeme2)
and we need to decide which is correct
(instance-of Executive-CompanyManager Executive-Lexeme2)
or
(instance-of Executive-GoverningBody Executive-Lexeme2)
and we further assume that these terms have been defined with respect
to an
SUO, if the SUO has very general rules that state people can't create
other
adult humans, then the NLU system could pick the correct definition
for the
instance.
While the meanings of Executive-GoverningBody, SinnFein etc would
have
to be created in a domain specific ontology, the value of the SUO in
this
example seems clear to me.
Adam
-----A-d-v-e-r-t-i-s-e-m-e-n-t-s---B-e-l-o-w--------------
Searching for the best free email? Try MetaCrawler Mail, from the #1 metasearch service on the Web, http://www.metacrawler.com