Data Input from Lexical Entries and the Role of Lexical Senses on Ontolex Models

[Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos]

Hello Vocbench community,

With this email I intend to better understand the idea behind the implementation of the Lexical Senses on Ontolex models, as well as receive some help in stablishing a relation from a Lexical Entry to a Lexical Concept using a Lexical Sense without connecting it to an Ontology Entity.

In the core model of Ontolex, the Lexical Senses plays an important role regarding the relations between Lexical Entries, Lexical Concepts and Ontology Entities in an Ontolex Model.

In a project I am working in, the data input begins by the Lexical Enty and then we want to assert its relations with the other cited classes. From a Lexical Entry, it is possible to:

1)     Create a relation to Ontological Entities (denotes property)

According to the Ontolex specification, the property chain sense ∘ reference is equivalent to the property denotes. Vocbench deals greatly in this case, presenting an option to the user asking if he wants to create the Lexical Sense that intermediates the relation between the Lexical Entry and the Ontology Entity. Then the user can create the direct relation between the classes (property denotes) and optionally create automatically the Lexical Sense and the two related properties (sense and reference).

2)     Create a relation to Lexical Concepts (evokes property)

In this case, according to the Ontolex specification, the property chain sense o isLexicalizedSenseOf is equivalent to the property evokes. However, Vocbench treats this relation differently from case 1. In this case, Vocbench only presents the option to choose an already created Lexical Concept for stablishing the evokes relation – the option to automatically create the intermediate Lexical Sense is not presented.

My question is: considering the similarities between this case and the previous one, where both properties are equivalent to a property chain, why just the first one is implemented and the second one is not? For example, in the project I am working in, the creation of Lexical Senses in this case is fundamental and, using Vocbench, it cannot be done. In my humble opinion, implementing an option to automatically create the Lexical Sense related to the evokes property would be really helpful.

3)     Create a relation to Lexical Senses

Finally, on this third case, using the option to add a Lexical Sense, Vocbench obligatorily requires the creation of an associated Ontology Entity. For example, in the project in which I work, we not always have this Ontology Entity to provide, leading me without a possibility to create the Lexical Sense (and its relation to the Lexical Concept).

Another option I have tried is the creation of the Lexical Sense from the Lexical Concept, using the “other properties” and then adding an ontolex:isLexicalizedSense relation to the Lexical Concept. But unfortunately this only works when there is a Lexical Sense already created, i.e., it is not possible to create a new Lexical Sense in this way.

Considering the impossibility presented in case 2 to create a Lexical Sense from Lexical Entries to Lexical Concepts and the impossibility presented in case 3 to create the relation between Lexical Entries and Lexical Senses without setting an external reference (Ontology Entity), what do you recommend me to do?

I could find only one workaround for this situation, which is, from a Lexical Entry, setting a denotes relation using a fake URL and then deleting this fake URL maintaining the created Lexical Sense. Then I can get into the Lexical Sense and define its relation with the Lexical Concept. The problem is that (besides all unnecessary work with the creation and deletion of the Ontology Entity), the evokes relation is not automatically set between the Lexical Entry and the related Lexical Concept.

Sorry for the long email! If you need more examples or if you couldn’t understand something, please let me know. 

Thank you in advance for the support!

Kind regards,

Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos

[Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos]

Dear community,

I was studying about the Custom Forms and I was wondering if it could be used to solve the problem here reported. 

I could develop a  Custom Construct stating that every time a Lexical Entry is created the user must provide the Lexical Senses and the Lexical Concepts, stablishing their relations without the need of an external reference. The user can optionally insert the Ontology Entity, when it is available. 

For the other two cases reported in my previous email:

2)     Create a relation to Lexical Concepts (evokes property)

For this item, I think that a Custom Range would solve the reported issue. From a Lexical Entry, when clicking to add an evoked Lexical Concept, the form asks to insert an ontolex:evokes object property and hence we are talking about Custom Ranges. As it is possible to replace the original form with a new one, I am thinking in replacing the original form for a similar form that can optionally create a Lexical Sense (working on the same way as the denotes property - reported in topic 1 of the last email). Would this be the solution for this case? Can an instance be created through a Custom Range? Does someone have an example of code with this behavior to share with me?

3)     Create a relation to Lexical Senses

For this item, when clicking to add a Lexical Sense related to the selected Lexical Entry, Vocbench creates an instance of the Lexical Sense class, so we are talking about Custom Constructs. As a Form Mapping cannot replace the default form for Custom Constructs, I could not find a way to not enter an Ontology Entity. Can someone see any possibility to solve this issue?

I really would appreciate any help with this =)

Best regards,

Pedro Paulo

[Roland Wingerter]

Hi Pedro Paulo,

maybe the following can help with your case 2: Create a relation from a LexicalEntry to a Lexical Concept (evokes property).

You wrote: "In this case, Vocbench only presents the option to choose an already created Lexical Concept for [e]stablishing the evokes relation [...]". However, the dialog "Add ontolex:evokes" also allows creating a new Lexical Concept. All you have to do is to create an ontolex:ConceptSet first and enable it. In the "Create concept" dialog you need to enter a label that can be deleted again later. Adding an ontolex:sense is a separate step.

Kind regards

Roland

[Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos]

Hi Roland,

Thank you so much for answering me in this thread! I am really happy to receive an opinion about this issue!

You wrote: "In this case, Vocbench only presents the option to choose an already created Lexical Concept for [e]stablishing the evokes relation [...]". However, the dialog "Add ontolex:evokes" also allows creating a new Lexical Concept. All you have to do is to create an ontolex:ConceptSet first and enable it. In the "Create concept" dialog you need to enter a label that can be deleted again later. 

Yes, you are right! Thank you! It is really possible to create a new Lexical Concept in this dialog.

Adding an ontolex:sense is a separate step.

However, how can this be done without the necessity of informing an external URL (Ontology Entity)? The absence of possibility to do this is reported in case 3 presented on the original email of the thread.

Still considering case 2, I maintain my question:

considering the similarities between this case and the previous one, where both properties are equivalent to a property chain, why just the first one is implemented and the second one is not? For example, in the project I am working in, the creation of Lexical Senses in this case is fundamental and, using Vocbench, it cannot be done. In my humble opinion, implementing an option to automatically create the Lexical Sense related to the evokes property would be really helpful.

Once again, thank you for the help! 

Best regards,
Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos

--
You received this message because you are subscribed to a topic in the Google Groups "vocbench-user" group.
To unsubscribe from this topic, visit https://groups.google.com/d/topic/vocbench-user/_Tr6o76tmgo/unsubscribe.
To unsubscribe from this group and all its topics, send an email to vocbench-use...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vocbench-user/bb7a80a7-46c9-49ea-9c87-27ba97557596n%40googlegroups.com.

[Roland Wingerter]

Hi Pedro Paulo,

let me first say that I am not an Ontolex expert, but your question caught my interest, so I tried to figure it out.

In your case 3 you wrote: "Finally, on this third case, using the option to add a Lexical Sense, Vocbench obligatorily requires the creation of an associated Ontology Entity. For example, in the project in which I work, we not always have this Ontology Entity to provide, leading me without a possibility to create the Lexical Sense (and its relation to the Lexical Concept)."

Here is how to add a Lexical Sense to a Lexical Entry.

1. In the Lexical Entry view, go to partition "Lexical senses" and click on the blue icon on the right-hand side. A new dialog opens.

2. Dialog "Add lexical sense": Ignore the entry field and click on the pencil on the right hand side. A new dialog opens.

3. Dialog "Pick resource": Select "Concept" and click "OK". A new dialog opens.

4. Dialog "Select concept": Choose a concept and click "OK".

5. Back in the "Add lexical sense" dialog, the entry field now contains a suggested URI for the new Lexical Sense (which you can rename).

Tick or untick the checkbox "Create plain" (see below). Click OK - that's it!

The resource view has been updated and shows the URI of the newly created Lexical Sense ("ontolex:sense").

If "Create plain" is activated in the "Add lexical sense" dialog (step 2 / step 5), VB3 will also link Lexical Entry and Lexical Concept, using the property ontolex:denotes.

Hope it helps.

Kind regards

Roland

[Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos]

Roland, good afternoon,

Yes, this is the solution to the "problem" I reported! Thank you so much! 😃

While studying a way to do that I didn't notice that the pencil icon could do this! In fact, in my opinion, it is not an intuitive step =)

In order to add all available data at the same time, I was trying to input data using a Custom Form, but I am facing strange results. If you are interested, I sent an email to this group about the first issue I found: https://groups.google.com/g/vocbench-user/c/KL9z4CJ5MqE/m/1nTX1spAAAAJ

Once again, thank you very much!

Kind regards,
Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vocbench-user/12a45670-e475-4ad5-ac48-e9e757fcfacan%40googlegroups.com.

[Roland Wingerter]

Hi Pedro Paulo,

I am glad it helped.

Kind regards

Roland

[Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos]

Roland, good night,

If I am not wrong, I have bad news. Unfortunately, the set of steps you sent me is not the solution for the reported case. Note that according to the Ontolex model, the denotes relation occurs between a Lexical Entry and an Ontology Entity (i.e., an external URL reference) [1], and not between a Lexical Entry and a Lexical Concept. The denotes relation created between a Lexical Entry and a Lexical Concept is undesired.

It is still not possible to create a Lexical Sense from a Lexical Entry without associating it to an Ontology Entity (external URL).

[1] https://www.w3.org/2016/05/ontolex/Lemon_OntoLex_Core.png

Sorry for not seen this before.

Kind regards,
Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vocbench-user/26038556-5c2c-4ea4-8a22-9c5df0e6d306n%40googlegroups.com.

[Roland Wingerter]

Hi Pedro Paulo,

yes, I noticed that the "create plain" option creates a relation using "ontolex:denotes". I understand that this does not seem to conform with the OntoLex specification. I think it is still possible to do what you want, but you need more than one step:

1. Start from an existing Lexical Entry.

2. Create a Lexical Sense.

3. Create a Lexical Concept.

4. Create a relation (ontolex:lexicalizedSense) from Lexical Concept to Lexical Sense.

Or maybe you can make do with "ontolex:denotes" for the time being and later on use a SPARQL Insert/Delete to replace it with "ontolex:evokes".

Kind regards

Roland

[Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos]

Hello Roland.

In my case I have two premises: not always an Ontology Entity (external URL) is available, and the data entry must start with a Lexical Entry.

Hence, the best way I could find to do that is:

1) Create a Lexical Entry (in the "Lexical Entry" tab)

2) Create an instance of a Lexical Sense class (in the "Class" tab)

3) Get into the created instance (double click) and set its relations with the Lexical Entry and with the other concepts (Lexical Concept and Ontology Entity, which can be created directly inside the Lexical Sense view).  

This seems the best way to input data considering my restrictions, but it is not so intuitive. I am still going to try/insist on the Custom Forms, as I told you. 

Once again, thank you very much for your help! I wish you a great weekend!

Kind regards,
Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vocbench-user/82817e27-ac33-444d-8f14-d4cfe5278592n%40googlegroups.com.

[Roland Wingerter]

Hello Paulo Pedro,

thank you for the explanation. I am glad you found a solution. I agree there could be an easier way. I am sure the VB3 team will give feedback when they are back from holiday.

I have very little experience with custom forms, so I am afraid I cannot help you with that.

Have a nice weekend!

Kind regards

Roland

[Manuel Fiorelli]

Hi Pedro and Roland

I've read the whole thread, which has gotten long thanks to ìRoland's support and Pedro's tests.

First of all, you are right that there should be an easier way to relate lexical entries to lexical concepts taking care of details such as plain vs reified sense, much like we did with ontology references. Actually, we should already have a dedicated issue on our backlog. Maybe we could implement that in a coming release (probably not the very next one that will be released soon).

Similarly, the fact that we require an ontology reference when creating a lexical sense might be annoying, but at least conforming to the Ontolex-Lemon specification (see the cardinality constraint on the definition of the lexical sense class, https://www.w3.org/2016/05/ontolex/#lexicalsense-class). Actually, I know that the community group may reconsider this constraint in a future revision of the specification, as many language resources that have been encoded in OntoLex-Lemon only have lexical concepts.

Actually, we went somehow ahead along this path in the so called lexicographer view (http://vocbench.uniroma2.it/doc/user/lexview.jsf). You can find it in the tab at the bottom of the resource view of a lexical entry. As depicted in the figure below, you can create a "conceptualization" that relates a lexical entry to a lexical concept.

In this manner, you will be prompted with a dialog that allows to do exactly what you need:

The lexicographer view may not support all the stuff that you need tough. If this is the case, you might use the lexicographer view for creating the senses and then fallback to the resource view for further editing.

Indeed, let us know if you identify any weak spot in the lexicographer view.

Concerning the use of custom ranges for the property ontolex:evokes, please note it is primarily intended to build the object of the property rather than create a new resource (i.e. the sense) which has to be related to the original subject using a different property. For this reason the subject is not accessible to the custom range, which cannot be used to implement your use case.

However, reading your other thread, I've the impression that you might have decided to use custom constructors instead. These can only extend the standard form (so for a lexical sense, you cannot delete the required reference to the ontology entity), but it should be doable to implement a custom constructor for the lexical entry. Nonetheless, I think that custom constructors for lexical entries are not the best solution, in particular because they will not support you in creating additional senses later.

Best regards,

Manuel

You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "vocbench-user" group.
To unsubscribe from this group and stop receiving emails from it, send an email to vocbench-use...@googlegroups.com.
To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vocbench-user/495dab1f-0538-43c5-a1b1-aec3c1640ac9n%40googlegroups.com.

--

Manuel Fiorelli

[Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos]

Hi Manuel,

Sorry for taking so long to answer your email. Thank you very much for all information provided.

I gave up the use of custom forms/constructors. Considering the cardinalities of the Lexical Senses' relations, you are right: Vocbench is indeed adherent to the specification (which is more restrictive than it should be in the scenario we are dealing with).

Considering that by the moment I sent the emails I didn't know I was capable of creating the lexical sense without the ontology entity relation using the Lexicographer View (by the way, thank you so much for this tip!), I used another strategy, which basically was:

1. Create the Lexical Entry
2. On the Class tab, create an instance of the LexicalSense class.
3. In this instance view, create the desired relations.

This is not a fast way to enter data, but at least I could create the Lexical Senses and relate them to their Lexical Entries and Lexical Concepts without any relation to external URLs.

Once again, thank you very much for your support.

Kind regards,
Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos

To view this discussion on the web visit https://groups.google.com/d/msgid/vocbench-user/CAGDmdGhYnNuEwdhkQO6XdeF4ycRdfQ9cMTqx5DxkmS2wfMZJZA%40mail.gmail.com.

[Manuel Fiorelli]

Hi Pedro,

We have just added the possibility to create a sense with a lexical concept (instead of an ontology reference) also in the resource view. This capability will be available in the next release.

--

Manuel Fiorelli

[Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos]

Hi Manuel,

This is great news for my project! It will really help us! Thank you so much!

Kind regards - Cordiali saluti - Atenciosamente,
Pedro Paulo Favato Barcelos