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A Semantic Network of English: The Mother of All WordNets

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Abstract

We give a brief outline of the design and contents of the English lexical database WordNet, which serves as a model for similarly conceived wordnets in several European languages. WordNet is a semantic network, in which the meanings of nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs are represented in terms of their links to other (groups of) words via conceptual-semantic and lexical relations. Each part of speech is treated differently reflecting different semantic properties. We briefly discuss polysemy in WordNet, and focus on the case of meaning extensions in the verb lexicon. Finally, we outline the potential uses of WordNet not only for applications in natural language processing, but also for research in stylistic analyses in conjunction with a semantic concordance.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Cognitive Science Laboratory, Princeton University, and Rider University, Princeton, NJ, USA

    Christiane Fellbaum

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  1. Christiane Fellbaum
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Fellbaum, C. A Semantic Network of English: The Mother of All WordNets. Computers and the Humanities 32, 209–220 (1998). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1001181927857

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