Corpus Guided Sense Cluster Analysis: a methodology for ontology development (with examples from the spatial domain)
Brandon Bennett, Claudia Cialone · Frontiers in artificial intelligence and applications · 2014
The paper explores problems in ontology construction that arise due to the complex mapping between language and meaning. A new methodology is proposed, which combines a definitional approach using formal logic, with corpus-based statistical analysis of the use of terminology in natural language text. Underlying the approach is a semantic theory in which the notion of sense cluster plays a central role. Rather than having a single precise definition, the referent of a conceptual term is taken to be a sense cluster, modelled by a probability distribution over a set of precise definitions. This style of semantic specification pays heed to insights into the nature of language coming from philosophers such as Wittgenstein and his followers; but it also provides a framework supporting rigorous formal ontology development, which is often regarded as incompatible with the view of language suggested by Wittgenstein (in his later works).