WordNet RDF

Dear all,

I've created a think RDF wrapper around the WordNet 3.0 database (nouns
only). For example:

  http://ontologi.es/WordNet/data/Fool

This is nothing especially new - Dan Brickley did something similar with
WordNet 1.6, many moons ago, and the W3C has also published an RDF version
of WordNet 2.something.

Here are a few features of note:

Dan's version represented each noun as an rdfs:Class; the W3C version
represents each word as something like a skos:Concept (though it uses a
pre-SKOS vocabulary). Mine does both, using separate URIs. For instance:

  <http://ontologi.es/WordNet/class/Fool-1>
  An rdfs:Class defined as "a person who lacks good judgment".

  <http://ontologi.es/WordNet/concept/Fool-1>
  A skos:Concept defined as "a person who lacks good judgment".

These are related using foaf:focus to link from skos:Concept to
rdfs:Class, and rdfs:seeAlso to link back the other way. The skos:Concept
is rich with narrower/broader/related relationships, and alternative
labels; the rdfs:Class less so.

Note that "Fool-1" is just one sense that the English word "fool" can be
taken to mean. There are two other senses: as a synonym of "chump" or
"fallguy"; and as a synonym of "jester". There's a class:

  <http://ontologi.es/WordNet/class/Fool>

which acts as a superclass of all three senses of the word "fool". With
"fool", the meanings of each sense are close enough that the distinction
is not especially important, but with say "crack" this could refer to a
small gap (a doorway that's open a crack), a break (a crack in a mirror),
a sound (the crack of a whip) or crack cocaine - so distinguishing is more
useful.

This data is not SPARQLable as it's assembled on request. I ought to be
able to release the source code for it fairly soon, which will allow you
to create a local mirror if you want to, say, crawl the data.

-Toby

Received on Wednesday, 8 September 2010 11:40:10 UTC