Re: Meaning and Semiotics - Issues for Modelling

Dear John, Guido,

  thanks for getting this discussion started.

@Guido: I also agree that we need senses, but not for the same argument 
that you give. I think that polysemy could be represented without the 
type of object that John calls a "Sense".

Take your example "bald" which according to WordNet can mean (among 
other things):

*1) bald*,barefaced(with no effort to conceal)/"a barefaced lie"/
2) *bald*,bald-headed,bald-pated(lacking hair on all or most of the 
scalp)/"a bald pate"; "a bald-headed gentleman"/

This could be modelled without a mediating sense as follows:

Lexical Entry: bald (adjective) ----- mapsTo ----- Concept: obvious
                                              .......... mapsTo ----- 
Concept: hasNoHair

And coming to your modelling, what exactly is the difference in your 
view between mapping to a Non-Physical Subclass "Meaning" compared to 
mapping directly to a symbol representing a concept?

For example, if in a given ontology I have the concepts  onto:Human and 
onto:hasNoHair, I could create the intersection
onto:bald = (onto:Human AND onto:hasNoHair) and then specify the following:

Lexical Entry: bald (adjective)   ---- has Sense --- bald_adjective-1

bald_adjective_1  ---- has Def --- "having a scalp wholly or partly 
lacking hair"@en

bald_adjective_1 ---- hasMeaning ----  onto:bald

With this I would have also modelled the "Characterizes ony ---> Human 
part of your representation".

However, it seems to me that this only works for intersective adjectives 
in this way.

Let's take the case of the German verbs "fressen" and "essen".

They both map to the same concept "TakingInSolidFood" (Wordnet's first 
sense for "eat"), but they differ in their selectional restrictions.
In the case of "fressen", the agent is implied to be an animal, while in 
the case of "eat", the agent is supposed to be a human. It seems to me 
that this can not be modelled by mapping to one single concept as in the 
case of the intersective adjective "bald".

Interestingly, WordNet defines two different senses for "eat" in 
English, one corresponding to eating animals (with synonym "feed") and 
one corresponding to eating humans.

And a point concering "vagueness":  using the direct mapping approach, 
you also do not commit to the fact that "bald things" exist.

Btw. just for interest: Where does the term "acceptation" actually come 
from?

Cheers,

Philipp.

Am 08.08.12 12:42, schrieb Guido Vetere:
> John,
>
> We do need senses, since lexical units (lexemes) may have different 
> meanings (polysemy). Whether to call them 'sense', 'acceptation', 
> 'sememe', 'meaning', etc, depends (in my opinion) on how we want to 
> qualify these objects with respect to a comprehensive model (theory).
>
> In Senso Comune, for instance, we called them 'acceptation' (but we 
> are currently looking for a more comfortable word) because we started 
> from representing lexicographical notions, i.e. (ontologically) 
> Information Objects which are constitutive of a special kind of books, 
> namely Dictionaries. Moreover, our senses (acceptations) are not 
> directly mapped to classes representing 'real things', but with 
> (sub)classes of a Non-Physical Entity called Meaning. Possibly, these 
> classes are defined by specifying the kind of real thing they 
> characterize, which is, ultimately, the 'ontological commitment' 
> behind the word (à la Quine).
>
> To give an example, the adjective 'bald' in the sense of 'lacking 
> hairs') may look like this:
>
> Lexical Entry: bald (adjective)                                       
>                                  Meaning                               
>                             Thing
> |__ part -> Sense 1:  Definition "having a scalp wholly or partly 
> lacking hair"     ------ maps to --->  |__ isa -> Meaning_of_bald_1   
> ---- characterizes-only ---->   |__ isa -> Human
>
> Note that, this way, we can account for linguistic vagueness, since we 
> don't commit ourselves to say that, in the World, there are 'bald 
> things'  - even though, if you look at me or Aldo, you wouldn't have 
> doubts about that :-)
>
> Regards,
>
> Guido Vetere
> Manager, Center for Advanced Studies IBM Italia
> _________________________________________________
> Rome                                     Trento
> Via Sciangai 53                       Via Sommarive 18
> 00144 Roma, Italy                   38123 Povo in Trento, Italy
> +39 (0)6 59662137                 +39 (0)461 312312
>
> Mobile: +39 3357454658
> _________________________________________________
>
>
> *John McCrae <jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de>*
> Sent by: johnmccrae@gmail.com
>
> 06/08/2012 14.54
>
> 	
> To
> 	public-ontolex <public-ontolex@w3.org>
> cc
> 	
> Subject
> 	Meaning and Semiotics - Issues for Modelling
>
>
>
> 	
>
>
>
>
>
> Hi all,
>
> I thought I would get the ball rolling on the requirements "Express 
> Meaning with respect to ontology". I fleshed out two of the key issues 
> for modelling the lexicon-ontology interface here
>
> _http://www.w3.org/community/ontolex/wiki/Specification_of_Requirements/Lexicon-Ontology-Mapping_ 
>
>
> They are
>
>     * Do we need a lexical sense/acceptation object between the
>       lexical entry and the ontology entity?
>     * How do we interpret different lexical classes relative to an
>       ontology
>
> Does anyone have comments?
>
> Regards,
> John
>
>
> IBM Italia S.p.A.
> Sede Legale: Circonvallazione Idroscalo - 20090 Segrate (MI)
> Cap. Soc. euro 347.256.998,80
> C. F. e Reg. Imprese MI 01442240030 - Partita IVA 10914660153
> Società con unico azionista
> Società soggetta all'attività di direzione e coordinamento di 
> International Business Machines Corporation
>
> (Salvo che sia diversamente indicato sopra / Unless stated otherwise 
> above) 


-- 
Prof. Dr. Philipp Cimiano
Semantic Computing Group
Excellence Cluster - Cognitive Interaction Technology (CITEC)
University of Bielefeld

Phone: +49 521 106 12249
Fax: +49 521 106 12412
Mail: cimiano@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de

Room H-127
Morgenbreede 39
33615 Bielefeld