EuroWordNet database

Copy Rights, Universiteit van Amsterdam

The multilingual EuroWordNet database consists of three components:

1. The actual wordnets in Flaim database format: an indexing and compression format of Novell, which is also part of the Groupwise software.
2. Polaris (Louw 1997): a wordnet editing tool for creating, editing and exporting wordnets.
3. Periscope (Cuypers and Adriaens 1997): a graphical database viewer for viewing and exporting wordnets.

The Polaris tool is a re-implementation of the Novell ConceptNet toolkit (Díez-Orzas et al 1995) adapted to the EuroWordNet architecture. Polaris can import new wordnets or wordnet fragments from ASCII files with the correct import format and it creates an indexed EuroWordNet database (an example of the import format is the Top Ontology file). Furthermore, it allows a user to edit and add relations in the wordnets and to formulate queries. The Polaris toolkit makes it possible to visualize the semantic relations as a tree-structure that can directly be edited. These trees can be expanded and shrunk by clicking on word-meanings and by specifying so-called TABs indicating the kind and depth of relations that need to be shown. Expanded trees or sub-trees can be stored as a set of synsets, which can be manipulated, saved or loaded. Additionally, it is possible to access the ILI or the ontologies, and to switch between the wordnets and ontologies via the ILI. Polaris can be licensed from Lernout and Hauspie in Antwerp or from ELRA. Finally, it contains a query interface to match sets of synsets across wordnets.

The Periscope program is a public viewer that can be used to look at wordnets created by the Polaris tool and compare them in a graphical interface. Word meanings can be looked up and trees can be expanded. Individual meanings or complete branches can be projected on another wordnet or wordnet structures can be compared via the equivalence relations with the Inter-Lingual-Index. Selected trees can be exported to Ascii files. The Periscope program cannot be used for importing or changing wordnets.

1. The Polaris program is partly Background and partly Foreground. It is property of Lernout and Hauspie and can be licensed as a EuroWordNet result, either directly from Lernout and Hauspie or from ELRA. The Polaris user-manual can be downloaded as Zipped PostScript or as Zipped RTF file. Click below to see some screen dumps of the Polaris tool:

• Polaris_WNExplorer.gif
• Polaris_TopOntology4.gif
• Polaris_XLProjector.GIF
• Polaris_SetOperations.GIF

1. The Periscope viewer is property of EuroWordNet and can be downloaded as freeware. Click PeriscopeVehicles.gif to see screen dump of the Periscope interface.

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