In this contribution our objective is to define term variation, analyze the state of the art, and propose a new classification of term variants according to our representation purposes in lemon, a lexiconontology model to enrich ontologies with linguistic descriptions

Aguado de Cea, G.

McCrae, J.

Montiel-Ponsoda, Elena

Montiel-Ponsoda E, Aguado-de-Cea G, McCrae J. Representing Term Variation in lemon. Presented at the International Conference on Terminology and Artificial Intelligence

Aguado-de-Cea, Gudalupe

McCrae, John 

Publications at Bielefeld University

Representing term variation in lemon  Elena Montiel-Ponsoda  Guadalupe Aguado-de-Cea John McCrae Ontology Engineering Group Semantic Computing Group Facultad de Informática CITEC Universidad Politécnica de Madrid Universität Bielefeld {emontiel, lupe}@fi.upm.es jmccrae@cit-ec.uni-bielefeld.de       Abstract In this contribution our objective is to de-fine term variation, analyze the state of the art, and propose a new classification of term variants according to our repre-sentation purposes in lemon, a lexicon-ontology model to enrich ontologies with linguistic descriptions. 1 Introduction A term variant has been defined as "an utterance which is semantically and conceptually related to an original term" (Daille et al., 1996). The same author expands this definition by explaining what is meant by utterance, original term, and seman-tically and conceptually related terms (Daille, 2005). An utterance is an attested form encoun-tered in a text. It is considered to be a variant with respect to an authorised term, i.e., a term listed in an authoritative terminological resource and accepted by a certain community. And it can be related to the original term in three forms: 1) by a synonymy relation, 2) by reflecting a "se-mantic distance from the reference term", or 3) by a conceptual link. According to Daille (2005), the adopted defi-nition of term variation depends on the purpose of the final application. For instance, in informa-tion retrieval the term variants usually handled are morpho-syntactic variants (histamine of the wine vs. wine histamine1) or variants related by a conceptual link (printer vs. laser printer).                                                  1Some examples have been extracted from Daille (2005) and Cabré (2008) In this contribution we concentrate on those variants that are considered synonyms and on those that reflect a "semantic distance" but that refer to the same concept. In doing so, we will not be dealing with those terminology variants related by means of a conceptual link. The rea-son for this is that we aim to analyze terminology variants with respect to an ontology or concep-tual model, and we argue that conceptual rela-tions will be already available in the knowledge model. However, we also foresee some mechan-isms for the case that conceptually related va-riants are to be represented outside the ontology. We understand synonym related variants as those term variants that are semantically coinci-dent but formally different, as defined in Cabré (2008). With regard to variants that reflect a semantic distance, we include those variants that are semantically and formally different (Freixa, 2002; Cabré, 2008) but still refer to the same ontological concept. In section 2 we propose a classification based on state of the art works and provide examples of each type of term variant. Then, in section 3 we describe how we aim at representing terminology variation in lemon, an ontology-lexicon model proposed in the framework of the Monnet project in order to linguistically enrich ontologies with lexical, terminological and syntactic information.   2 Typologies of variants revisited Based on previous classifications of terminology variation (Freixa, 2002; Daille, 2005; Cabré, 2008) we identify two main groups of term va-riants: 1) term variants that are semantically coincident but formally different, and 2) term variants that are semantically and formally dif-ferent. This has representation consequences as will be shown in section 3.  Group 1) would include, ? graphical and orthographical variants (localization vs. localisation); ? inflectional variants (cat vs. cats); ? morpho-syntactic variants (nitrogen fixation vs. fixation of nitrogen).  Regarding group 2), here we are dealing with terms that correspond to one and the same con-cept, but whose usage reflects a different aspect of the concept or a different intention on the side of the user, thus the semantic and formal distinc-tion. This shows the pragmatic aspects necessary to be considered in scientific communication. It means that the use of one term or the other is conditioned by a certain cognitive intention and highlights certain dimensions or features of the concept that will make its use more appropriate in certain situations. This phenomenon has been termed multidimensionality (Broker, 1997; Rog-ers, 2004). As explained in Fernández-Silva et al., (2011), "multidimensionality occurs when a concept can be seen from more than one perspec-tive and can therefore be classified and designat-ed in more than one way based on the different characteristics that it possesses". In Cabré (2008) these term variants are also referred to as partial synonyms. According to these definitions, we consider that the following term variants belong to this group: ? stylistic or connotative variants (man vs. bloke) ? dialectal variants (gasoline vs. petrol) ? pragmatic or register variants (head-ache vs. cephalalgia) ? diachronic variants (tuberculosis vs. phthisis) ? domain or concept dimension variants (swine flu vs. pig flu vs. H1N1 vs. Mexic pan-demic flu; MRSA (as Methicilin-resistance Sta-phylococcus aureus) vs. HA-MRSA vs. CA-MRSA) ? and what we dubb explicative variants (immigration law vs. law for regulating and con-trolling immigration).    It could also be argued that the term variants belonging to group 2) refer to different concepts, or, at least, to concepts belonging to different ontologies or to ontologies in the same domain created with different purposes. However, we claim that since they are pointing to the same concept or object in the world, they can be represented as term variants for that concept. In the context of our research we are able to capture these terminological variants in a complex model of lexical descriptions that is to be published with domain ontologies, namely, the lemon mod-el (McCrae, 2011). In lemon, concepts are represented by the on-tology, and terms are associated with concepts by means of a principled link represented by the class LexicalSense. It is this intermediate class that allows us to capture those semantic properties of term variants that make them se-mantically and formally distinct. In the next sec-tion, we aim at illustrating the representation of term variants in lemon.   1 Terminology variation in lemon The core classes of the lemon model are the ones that make up the main path between the ontology  and the lexical entry, its forms and written repre-sentations, as can be seen in Figure 1. Since con-cepts as defined in ontologies and lexical entries as defined in lexicons cannot be said to overlap, the LexicalSense class provides the adequate restrictions (usage, context, register, etc.) that make a certain lexical entry appropriate for nam-ing a certain concept in the specific context of the ontology being lexicalized. This class will be key in making a distinction between those term variants included in group 1) and the ones in-cluded in group 2). Essentially, the main differ-ence is that those terms variants considered se-Figure 1. lemon core mantically coincident but formally different will be pointing to the same LexicalSense, whereas those considered semantically and formally dif-ferent will be linked to different lexical senses, which in its turn are pointing to the same ontolo-gy element. Let us illustrate this with some ex-amples.  In Figure 2, we have included an example of  the so-called graphical or orthographical variants. There we see that they are represented as two different written representations of the same LexicalForm, associated to the same LexicalEn-try and pointing to the same LexicalSense and ontology concept. As these differences are only due to orthographical rules and not reflected in the spoken language, we consider them to be the same form of the entry. In Figure 3 we represent two different lexical entries (nitrogen fixation and fixation of nitro-gen) that are associated to the same Lexical-Sense, as their differences in format do not have any meaning or pragmatic consequences, but further represent the same meaning in the context of the ontology.  Finally, in Figure 4 we aim to illustrate one ex-ample of term variants which are semantically and formally different, in that they are used in different geographical settings. With the aim of capturing that restriction, we associate each Lex-icalEntry to a different LexicalSense, and ac-count for that usage restriction.   A similar approach would be valid for the rest of variants included in group 2). Acknowledgments This work is supported by the EU project Mon-net (FP7-248458), the Spanish project BabeLDa-ta (TIN2010-17550), and the CITEC excellence initiative funded by the EU and the  Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft. References Bowker, L. 1997. You say "flatbed colour scanner", I say "colour flatbed scanner": A descriptive study of the influence of multidimensionality on term for-mation and use with special reference to the subject field of optical scanning technology. Terminology 4(2):275-302. Cabré, M. T. 2008. El principio de poliedricidad: la articulación de lo discursivo, lo cognitivo y lo lin-güístico en Terminología (I). IBÉRICA 16:9-36. Daille, B. 2005. Variations and application-oriented terminology engineering. Terminology 11(1):181-197. Daille, B. Habert, B. Jacquemin, C and Royauté, J. 1996. Empirical observation of term variations and principles for their description. Terminology 3(2):197-257. Fernández-Silva, S. Freixa, J. Cabré, M.T. 2001. A proposed method for analysing the dynamics of cognition through term variation. Terminology 17(1):49-73. Freixa, J. 2002. La variació terminològica: anàlisi de la variació denominativa en textos de diferent grau d'especialització de l'àrea de medi ambient. PhD Thesis. Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona. Figure 2. Example of orthographical va-riants Figure 3. Example of morpho-syntactic va-riants Figure 4. Example of dialectal variants McCrae, J. Spohr, D., Cimiano, P. 2011. Linking lexical resources and ontologies on the semantic web with lemon. The Semantic Web: Research and Applications, 245-259.   Rogers, M. 2004. Multidimensionality in concepts systems: A bilingual textual perspective. Terminol-ogy 10(2):215-240. 

English

A proposed method for analysing the dynamics of cognition through term variation.

El principio de poliedricidad: la articulación de lo discursivo, lo cognitivo y lo lingüístico en Terminología (I).

Empirical observation of term variations and principles for their description.

La variació terminològica: anàlisi de la variació denominativa en textos de diferent grau d'especialització de l'àrea de medi ambient. PhD Thesis. Universitat Pompeu Fabra,

Variations and application-oriented terminology engineering.

You say &quot;flatbed colour scanner&quot;, I say &quot;colour flatbed scanner&quot;: A descriptive study of the influence of multidimensionality on term formation and use with special reference to the subject field of optical scanning technology.

Representing term variation in lemon

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