Re: [WNET] Sense keys in HyperDic 2.0

> Probably, but we ought to check something.  Saying that sense numbers are
> not stable does not entail that sense keys are.  The quoted para goes on to
> say:
> 
> [[
> A mapping from noun sense_key s in WordNet 1.6 to corresponding 2.0
> sense_key s is provided with version 2.0, and is described in sensemap(5WN).
> ]]
> 
> So they were not stable between 1.6 and 2.0.  I think its likely the intent
> is that they are stable from 2.0, but we ought to check.  The also include
> '%' characters.
> 

Sense Stability and Sense Key Stability
=======================================

Sense Stability
===============

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

Hmmm, really I need a better example, where because of social change the 
concept becomes *unthinkable* not just more difficult to say. Maybe the 
concept 'punk' (of a person) in the late seventies or early eighties - 
as a concept highly dependent on the surrounding social milieu, and the 
concepts in which it was in tension with. There is a related, but 
different concept 'punk' for today, and it is a deficiency of wordnet that

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=2&word=punk&posnumber=1&searchtypenumber=2&senses=4&showglosses=1

is just as appropriate for both.

With "rocker" wordnet records two relevant senses, one of which is given 
an explicitly dated cultural setting

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=2&word=rocker&posnumber=1&searchtypenumber=2&senses=3&showglosses=1

contrast with

http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/cgi-bin/webwn2.0?stage=2&word=rocker&posnumber=1&searchtypenumber=2&senses=2&showglosses=1

who is presumably one of today's rockers, who probably drives a car.

Sense Key Stability
===================

In as much as social changes are discontinuous, it may be possible to 
preserve sense key stability i.e.

#marriage1980 is clearly heterosexual

whereas

#marriage20XX might not be

But where social change is a continuous drift, it is not clear how to 
map the corresponding continuous change in sense onto a discrete set of 
sense keys. (The rocker example - the choice to provide a sense for a 
60s rocker, but not for a 70s rocker, who, IIRC, was typically a sixties 
rocker but a bit older)

Jeremy

Received on Tuesday, 20 July 2004 13:40:55 UTC