Re: owl:sameAs links from OpenCyc to WordNet

On Tue, Mar 17, 2009 at 7:51 PM, Jason Borro <jason@openguid.net> wrote:

> David,
>
> Sorry for missing this one earlier.  Yes indeed, OpenCyc's use of
> owl:sameAs caused me problems [1].
>
> Your proposed solution of openCyc:synsetDenotes is interesting.  If your
> goal is coreference, I would invite you to make use oguid:identical [2].


Although our initial instinct was to treat WordNet synset URIs not only as
coreferential, but as intensionally equivalent to the corresponding OpenCyc
terms (hence our use of owl:sameAs), the consensus appears to be that
synsets are lexical things, and bear only an indirect relationship to the
"real-world" things they denote.



>  Hundreds of questionable (in terms of coreference) links from OpenCyc to
> WordNet and DBPedia have been addressed in the OpenGUID database [3].  The
> data is in the public domain.


Excellent! If you can get me a complete list of these corrections (or a way
to access them in bulk myself), I'll look into including them in the next
OpenCyc release.

David


>
>
> [1]
> http://groups.google.com/group/open-guid-discussion/browse_thread/thread/9bc828ebada37aab
> [2] http://openguid.net/specification#identical
> [3] http://openguid.net/e6839a3b-da25-102b-9a03-2db401e887ec (example with
> questionable links removed)
>
>
> David Baxter wrote:
>
>> Hi all,
>>
>> We at Cycorp have been publishing owl:sameAs links from our OpenCyc
>> concepts to WordNet synsets, e.g.
>>
>>  <http://sw.opencyc.org/2008/06/10/concept/en/India> owl:sameAs <
>> http://www.w3.org/2006/03/wn/wn20/instances/synset-India-noun-1>
>>
>> We've done so with the idea that the WordNet synset represents the same
>> concept as the OpenCyc term (i.e. the South Asian country in this case), and
>> contains further relevant information that complements what is available in
>> OpenCyc, e.g.
>>
>>  "is a member of OPEC" (OK, this one's of dubious value, but it might be
>> useful if it were true)
>>  "is a member of the British Commonwealth"
>>  "is a part of Asia"
>>
>> However, WordNet also contains assertions about the "India" synset that
>> seem strange to assert about the country, e.g.
>>
>>  "is an instance of NounSynset"
>>  "contains WordSense 'Republic of India 1'"
>>
>> We'd like to know what the general feeling in the LOD community is about
>> these links. Is there any precedent or consensus about the best way to link
>> from ontologies such as OpenCyc's to WordNet? Is anyone finding these links
>> useful and/or harmful?
>>
>> Thanks for any input.
>>
>> David Baxter
>>
>
>
>