Deriving Metonymic Coercions from WordNet.
Sanda M. Harabagiu · 1998
This paper presents a method for deriving metonymic coercions from the knowledge available in WordNet. Two different classes of metonymies are inferred by using (1) lexico-semantic connections between concepts or (2) morphological cues and logical formulae defining lexical concepts. In both cases the derivation of metonymic paths is based on approximations of sortal constraints retrieved from WordNet. This novel method of inferring coercions validates the related knowledge through coreference links. As a result, metonymic coercions are potentially useful for the recognition of coreferring entities in information extraction systems. 1 Problem description The pervasive phenomenon of metonymy raises a problem for the interpretation of real-world texts. Metonymies are figures of speech in which, according to the literature definition from (Lakoff and Johnson, 1990), "one entity is used to refer to another, that is related to it". Characteristic of a metonymic reading of a textual expres...