research-article

Characterization of toponym usages in texts

Authors:

Sebastian Johannes Wolf,

Andreas Henrich,

Daniel BlankAuthors Info & Claims

GIR '14: Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Geographic Information Retrieval

Article No.: 7, Pages 1 - 8

https://doi.org/10.1145/2675354.2675703

Published: 04 November 2014 Publication History

Abstract

Toponyms in texts and search queries are often used figuratively and do not directly refer to the locations they reference in their literal sense. Different usage kinds and stylistic devices characterize toponym usages in texts. It is thus crucial for a Geographic Information Retrieval (GIR) system to precisely distinguish these different toponym usages at indexing and at query time in order to best address a given information need and the geospatial footprint of a document.

For that purpose, we analyze which of the classic stylistic devices such as allegories, metaphors, or metonymies are used together with toponyms. We use these categories as a foundation for a systematic approach towards the characterization of toponym usages in texts which we believe is necessary to further boost retrieval effectiveness of future GIR systems. A prototype implements this characterization exemplary for texts written in German. We evaluate the effectiveness of our approach against a reference corpus to show the general feasibility. Our approach provides a basis for a wide range of more sophisticated applications such as for example text genre detection.

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Cited By

Daniel NMátyás G(2022)Citizen science characterization of meanings of toponyms of Kenya: a shared heritageGeoJournal10.1007/s10708-022-10640-588:1(767-788)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10640-5
Stock KJones CRussell SRadke MDas PAflaki N(2021)Detecting geospatial location descriptions in natural language textInternational Journal of Geographical Information Science10.1080/13658816.2021.1987441(1-38)Online publication date: 22-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2021.1987441
Henrich ANicklas D(2018)Datenbanken und Information Retrieval an der Universität BambergDatenbank-Spektrum10.1007/s13222-018-0298-518:3(195-202)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13222-018-0298-5

Index Terms

Characterization of toponym usages in texts
1. Computing methodologies
  1. Artificial intelligence
    1. Natural language processing
2. Information systems
  1. Information retrieval

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cover image ACM Conferences

GIR '14: Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Geographic Information Retrieval

November 2014

94 pages

ISBN:9781450331357

DOI:10.1145/2675354

Program Chairs:
Ross Purves
University of Zurich
,
Chris Jones
Cardiff University

Copyright © 2014 ACM.

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Published: 04 November 2014

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Cited By

Daniel NMátyás G(2022)Citizen science characterization of meanings of toponyms of Kenya: a shared heritageGeoJournal10.1007/s10708-022-10640-588:1(767-788)Online publication date: 16-Apr-2022
https://doi.org/10.1007/s10708-022-10640-5
Stock KJones CRussell SRadke MDas PAflaki N(2021)Detecting geospatial location descriptions in natural language textInternational Journal of Geographical Information Science10.1080/13658816.2021.1987441(1-38)Online publication date: 22-Dec-2021
https://doi.org/10.1080/13658816.2021.1987441
Henrich ANicklas D(2018)Datenbanken und Information Retrieval an der Universität BambergDatenbank-Spektrum10.1007/s13222-018-0298-518:3(195-202)Online publication date: 24-Oct-2018
https://doi.org/10.1007/s13222-018-0298-5

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