Title: Chinese Characters and Top Ontology in EuroWordNetIntroductionTop Ontology?The Three Entity Types of TO:The Chinese LanguageSix Groups of Chinese CharactersSlide 7Slide 8The Chinese Language and 3rd Order EntitiesSlide 10Slide 11Sense Transfer and Other LanguagesThe Chinese Way to Represent ConceptsSlide 14Lexical/Conceptual OrganizationConclusionTitle: Chinese Characters and Top Ontology in EuroWordNetPaper by: Shun Sylvia Wong & Karel PalaPresentation By: Patrick BakerIntroductionWordNet, Cyc, HowNet, and EuroWordNet each use a hierarchical structure of language independent concepts to reflect the important semantic differences between conceptsEuroWordNet uses a hierarchy called Top Ontology (TO)This paper compares EuroWordNet’s TO with the natural organization found in the pictographic based Chinese languageTop Ontology?Ontologies are artificial constructs built with the primary purpose to serve as the lexical databases for knowledge representation systemsTop Ontology distinguishes between three types of entitiesThis paper focuses on the third typeThe Three Entity Types of TO:There are three types of entities distinguished at the first level of TO:1. 1st Order – any concrete entity publicly perceivable by the senses and located at any point in time, in a three-dimensional space (persons, animals, discrete objects)2. 2nd Order – any Static Situation (property, relation) or Dynamic Situation, which cannot be grasped, heard, seen, felt as an independent thing (events, processes, states-of-affair)3. 3rd Order – unobservable propositions which exist independently of time and space. They can be true or false rather than real (ideas, thoughts, theories, plans, reasons)The Chinese LanguageChinese script originated from picture-writingOnly a couple hundred characters in the language are actual pictogramsAccording to the etymological dictionary written by Xu Shen around 100 A.D., Chinese characters can be divided into six groupsSix Groups of Chinese Characters1. Pictographs (≈4%): represent real-life objects by drawings2. Ideographs (≈1%): represent positional and numeral concepts by indication3. Logical Aggregates (≈13%): form a new meaning by combining the meanings of two or more characters4. Phonetic Complexes (≈82%): form a character by combining the meaning of one character and another character which links through a shared sound5. Associative Transformations (a small portion): extend the meaning of a character by adding more parts to the existing one6. Borrowings (a small portion): to borrow the written form of a character with the same soundThe Chinese LanguageThe average educated Chinese person knows only about 6000 of the 50,000 characters in the Chinese languageSince many of the characters are combinations of simpler characters, knowing the meaning of one or more of the constituent characters allows deduction of the overall meaningThe Chinese LanguageBecause Chinese characters can not be ordered alphabetically in a dictionary, they are ordered by Section Heads or Chinese RadicalsThere are 213 Chinese RadicalsIn most cases, a character is grouped under a certain Chinese Radical if its concept relates to the concept represented by the radical in some wayThe Chinese Language and 3rd Order EntitiesThe concepts in the 3rd Order Entity list are abstract and difficult to grasp; most are represented by use in the form of a sentence (e.g. “John thought the movie was good”)Wong & Pala (2001) have shown that no direct correspondence can be found between Chinese Radicals and the concepts in the 3rd Order listIn most cases, the Chinese counterparts of these concepts are represented by more complicated lists of charactersThe Chinese Language and 3rd Order EntitiesFor each of the basic concepts in the 3rd Order list, the authors located their Chinese counterpartsEach concept created a list of Chinese characters representing synonyms, hyperonyms, and/or meanings that collectively defined the scope of the conceptThe meanings of the component radicals of each character in the list were then examinedThe Chinese Language and 3rd Order EntitiesThe authors found that certain radicals (with specific meanings) were found associated with one or two 3rd Order conceptsThis association is called Sense Transfere.g. the characters (logic/reason/theory), (opinion/theory/discussion), and (theory/to explain/to say) appear more often under theory e.g. the characters (to think/to consider) and (to think/to contemplate) appear more often under idea/thoughtSense Transfer and Other LanguagesSense transfer exists in most languages, though not necessarily to the extent as pictograph based languagesEnglish examples: care-free, side-light, un-think-ableCzech example: uč-i-t-el (a root denoting the concept ‘teach’ + a verb-making affix + an infinitive affix + an agentives suffix = teacher)The inadequacy of existing ontologies to show this sense transfer property means there exists no way to derive the meaning for a new word even if its components already exist in the ontologyThe Chinese Way to Represent ConceptsWong & Pala (2001) have observed that Chinese seems to organize concepts in a contextual manner, with each Chinese radical serving as the characterizing basic concept in the respective conceptThrough observation, the authors determined that many of the characters subsumed in the radicals can be classified along five main linesThe Chinese Way to Represent ConceptsThe five conceptual lines are: 1. As an object2. As a property3. As a typical event (situation, process)4. It’s component5. As a consequence•e.g. the character (fire) ‘as an object’ is part of (stove) and (charcoal), and ‘as a typical event’ is part of (to burn) and (to cremate)Lexical/Conceptual OrganizationThe Chinese way of organizing concepts (even abstract ones) from simpler, more concrete concepts/entities provides an alternative to the organization provided by existing ontologiesSuch an organization would form a semantic network as opposed to the tree structure found in such ontologiesSuch a semantic network is richer, more complete, and more transparent, as each concept is derived not from verbalized concepts, but a semantic context of discrete entitiesConclusionBy comparing EuroWordNet’s TO to the intrinsic structure provided by