INTEROP: Lexicon Enhancement via the GOLD Ontology (LEGO)

Eastern Michigan University, Ypsilanti MI

Investigators

Abstract

This project will furnish several 'building blocks' for data interoperability within linguistics and all disciplines which use language data. The work will be based on the General Ontology for Linguistic Description (GOLD), a machine-readable information structure which allows allows computers to process and 'understand' linguistic concepts and the relations among them. Using GOLD, the project will develop an extensive network of ontology-aware lexical items drawn from sixteen different projects and over 3000 languages. Thus, computers will be able to understand the relationship between linguistic categories across languages, and interpret what their linguistic function is when they appear in texts. In addition, the project will develop a set of low-barrier data requirements which lexicon creators can implement in order to join this ontology-based network. It will also create architecture to integrate network data into frameworks developed by major international standards initiatives. Finally, the project will establish DevSpace, an online facility designed to promote continuing information- and resource-sharing among linguists and developers interested in augmenting the network with additional tools and services. Such a project is important because cross-linguistic language data is central to many research communities. Language history and language comparison can provide critical insights into the genetics, culture, migrations, and contacts of human populations. And natural language data is indispensable to major computational research initiatives, such as multilingual text processing. In providing linguistically interpreted lexical data from so many underdescribed languages, LEGO will ultimately aid in meaning extraction from texts even of languages far too small to justify a full-scale natural language processing system. Thus from both a computational perspective and a Humanities and Social Sciences perspective, the LEGO project will create a research resource of remarkable breadth and diversity, one which will serve multiple disciplines.