RE: [WNET] Sense keys in HyperDic 2.0

[...]
> 
> Long term (e.g. 10+ years) sense stability is a non-starter.

Hmmm, what do you mean by sense stabality?

A sense can have a stable meaning.  Words may acquire more senses over time,
and the 'popularity' of a sense may change over time.

> At least 
> some senses become unusable as time progresses.
> 
> A highly political example would be
> 
> http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=2&word=
marriage&posnumber=1&searchtypenumber=2&senses=2&showglosses=1
> 
> Currently the gloss is "marriage, married couple, man and 
> wife", it is 
> at least conceivable that to say that in 10 years time you 
> will need to 
> specify "heterosexual marriage", perhaps it will take longer.

Sure, but if you are reading from a text written in 1950, marriage is likely
to mean heterosexial marriage.  The sense will still exist; it will be
identified by a different word(s).

> 
> Hmmm, really I need a better example, where because of social 
> change the 
> concept becomes *unthinkable* not just more difficult to say.

Hmmm, yes.  That's going to be hard though.  Phlogiston is "unthinkable" in
the sense that no one takes it seriously anymore, but its not unthinkable in
the sense of conceptually incoherent.

How precise are the senses captured in Wordnet?  Words are rarely exact
synomyms, so the synset structure isn't capturing subtle differences in
meaning between words.

Are you thinking in terms of adegree of precision that Wordnet does not
provide?

Brian