4 ms·

An Open Version of WordNet

73 points by syats 6y ago

syats 6y ago
Wordnet is like a dictionary in that it contains definitions and synonyms of words. It goes beyond a dictionary in that it also records relationships like hypernym (broader) and hyponym (narrower), which can be useful for "understanding" (what ever that means) text. It is a graph, that connects different senses (called synsets), and also senses to words. It used to be released under some close license and poorly maintained, now there's a fork of it on github to which all can contribute.
- tasogare 6y ago
  Wordnet has a "gloss" field but it’s very lacking if used as a traditional dictionary. Its value lies in the graph of synsets.
  - compressedgas 6y ago
    The problem with the gloss or example field is that it is per synnet and not per (word, sense or synnet) pair as it would be in a normal dictionary. This means if you try to use it as a normal dictionary the glosses tend to not contain the word for which you are listing the senses.
rohan1024 6y ago
A fun way to access WordNet hosted by dict.org nc dict.org 2628 DEFINE wn hacker Don't think it's open though.
- minerjoe 6y ago
  It's open. You can install your own copy locally. Arch has an AUR dict-wn that does this. For those not using arch you can still clone the PKGBUILD and see how it grabs and compiles and installs. git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/dict-wn https://aur.archlinux.org/dict-wn
  - frank2 6y ago
    I remember installing the Wordnet database on my Arch Linux install 17 years ago so I would have a dictionary I could use without internet connectivity. Wordnet can be used as a traditional dictionary although it is not very good compared to, e.g., the dictionary that comes with any Mac or iPhone.
Isamu 6y ago
Wordnet is already open, I think the advantage of this is that it is being actively maintained. From Wordnet: > Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and database and its documentation for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you agree to comply with the following copyright notice and statements, including the disclaimer, and that the same appear on ALL copies of the software, database and documentation, including modifications that you make for internal use or for distribution.
Bellamy 6y ago
What exactly can you do/produce with this graph and connection of words? I can't understand the benefits.
- suyash 6y ago
  yes, I'm also interested in use cases for the same.
- azinman2 6y ago
  It used to be used in NLP, but never to great success. Word embeddings are a far more powerful way to achieve a lot of similar goals, but with easier computation, easier scalability to other languages, and accommodation for new/personal words that aren't (yet) in the dictionary.
  - mark_l_watson 6y ago
    I agree with you, sort of, but WordNet based systems can be explainable. Word embedding (and sentence embedding, etc.) is great, but like deep learning models is a black box.
    - azinman2 6y ago
      I wouldn't assume even that... "X was chosen because a matrix decomposition suggested it was relevant" isn't so great either... WordNet is/was rarely used as just a single hop, those hops are somewhat arbitrary to begin with, and ultimately it never really materialized as a useful tool. If it can't be used for anything, then there's nothing to explain!
- defen 6y ago
  You can build a company called Applied Semantics and then sell your tech to Google so they can develop products called "AdSense" and "AdWords" and make trillions of dollars of revenue. However, first you'll need to invent a time machine that can take you back in time 20 years.
- abhgh 6y ago
jatsign 6y ago
An animated graph of wordnet links may help explain why it's useful: https://www.wordsapi.com/ https://www.wordsapi.com/
Yeroc 6y ago
Is there a similar API with the etymology of the words? I played with this a bit and it doesn't seem to cover this area.
rrose 6y ago
it... doesn't know the word "how"? literally like the second word i typed in. it seems like this must have some holes in it?
- kleiba 6y ago
  Function words are often considered less interesting form a syntacto-symantic point of view. WordNet focuses on content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs).
mark_l_watson 6y ago
I have used WordNet for 20 years, off and on. Cool that is was forked and effort put into the new version. WordNet has a rich set of libraries in many languages to use the data. I didn’t see anything similar on their github repo.
- compressedgas 6y ago
  You can use the existing libraries for Wordnet with the version in WNDB format.

73 points by syats 6y ago

Wordnet is like a dictionary in that it contains definitions and synonyms of words. It goes beyond a dictionary in that it also records relationships like hypernym (broader) and hyponym (narrower), which can be useful for "understanding" (what ever that means) text. It is a graph, that connects different senses (called synsets), and also senses to words. It used to be released under some close license and poorly maintained, now there's a fork of it on github to which all can contribute.

tasogare 6y ago
Wordnet has a "gloss" field but it’s very lacking if used as a traditional dictionary. Its value lies in the graph of synsets.
- compressedgas 6y ago
  The problem with the gloss or example field is that it is per synnet and not per (word, sense or synnet) pair as it would be in a normal dictionary. This means if you try to use it as a normal dictionary the glosses tend to not contain the word for which you are listing the senses.

rohan1024 6y ago

A fun way to access WordNet hosted by dict.org nc dict.org 2628 DEFINE wn hacker Don't think it's open though.

minerjoe 6y ago
It's open. You can install your own copy locally. Arch has an AUR dict-wn that does this. For those not using arch you can still clone the PKGBUILD and see how it grabs and compiles and installs. git clone https://aur.archlinux.org/dict-wn https://aur.archlinux.org/dict-wn
- frank2 6y ago
  I remember installing the Wordnet database on my Arch Linux install 17 years ago so I would have a dictionary I could use without internet connectivity. Wordnet can be used as a traditional dictionary although it is not very good compared to, e.g., the dictionary that comes with any Mac or iPhone.

Isamu 6y ago

Wordnet is already open, I think the advantage of this is that it is being actively maintained. From Wordnet: > Permission to use, copy, modify and distribute this software and database and its documentation for any purpose and without fee or royalty is hereby granted, provided that you agree to comply with the following copyright notice and statements, including the disclaimer, and that the same appear on ALL copies of the software, database and documentation, including modifications that you make for internal use or for distribution.

Bellamy 6y ago

What exactly can you do/produce with this graph and connection of words? I can't understand the benefits.

suyash 6y ago
yes, I'm also interested in use cases for the same.
azinman2 6y ago
It used to be used in NLP, but never to great success. Word embeddings are a far more powerful way to achieve a lot of similar goals, but with easier computation, easier scalability to other languages, and accommodation for new/personal words that aren't (yet) in the dictionary.
- mark_l_watson 6y ago
  I agree with you, sort of, but WordNet based systems can be explainable. Word embedding (and sentence embedding, etc.) is great, but like deep learning models is a black box.
  - azinman2 6y ago
    I wouldn't assume even that... "X was chosen because a matrix decomposition suggested it was relevant" isn't so great either... WordNet is/was rarely used as just a single hop, those hops are somewhat arbitrary to begin with, and ultimately it never really materialized as a useful tool. If it can't be used for anything, then there's nothing to explain!
defen 6y ago
You can build a company called Applied Semantics and then sell your tech to Google so they can develop products called "AdSense" and "AdWords" and make trillions of dollars of revenue. However, first you'll need to invent a time machine that can take you back in time 20 years.
abhgh 6y ago

jatsign 6y ago

An animated graph of wordnet links may help explain why it's useful: https://www.wordsapi.com/ https://www.wordsapi.com/

Yeroc 6y ago

Is there a similar API with the etymology of the words? I played with this a bit and it doesn't seem to cover this area.

rrose 6y ago

it... doesn't know the word "how"? literally like the second word i typed in. it seems like this must have some holes in it?

kleiba 6y ago
Function words are often considered less interesting form a syntacto-symantic point of view. WordNet focuses on content words (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs).

mark_l_watson 6y ago

I have used WordNet for 20 years, off and on. Cool that is was forked and effort put into the new version. WordNet has a rich set of libraries in many languages to use the data. I didn’t see anything similar on their github repo.

compressedgas 6y ago
You can use the existing libraries for Wordnet with the version in WNDB format.