Ontology and the Lexicon: A Natural Language Processing Perspective

The relation between ontologies and language is currently at the forefront of natural language processing (NLP). Ontologies, as widely used models in semantic technologies, have much in common with the lexicon. A lexicon organizes words as a conventional inventory of concepts, while an ontology formalizes concepts and their logical relations. A shared lexicon is the prerequisite for knowledge-sharing through language, and a shared ontology is the prerequisite for knowledge-sharing through information technology. In building models of language, computational linguists must be able to accurately map the relations between words and the concepts that they can be linked to. This book focuses on the technology involved in enabling integration between lexical resources and semantic technologies. It will be of interest to researchers and graduate students in NLP, computational linguistics, and knowledge engineering, as well as in semantics, psycholinguistics, lexicology and morphology/syntax.

Chu-Ren Huang is Chair Professor in the Department of Chinese and Bilingual Studies at Hong Kong Polytechnic University, and Research Fellow at the Institute of Linguistics, Academia Sinica in Taiwan.

Nicoletta Calzolari is Director of Research in the Istituto di Linguistica Computazionale at the CNR in Italy.

Aldo Gangemi is a Research Scientist at the Laboratory of Applied Ontology in Italy.

Alessandro Lenci is a Researcher in the Department of Linguistics at the University of Pisa.

Alessandro Oltramari is a Research Fellow in the Laboratory for Applied Ontology, Institute of Cognitive Science and Technology at the Italian National Research Council.