词义知识表示主要依赖属性描述或分类描述,这两种方式各有所长,但不同表示之间相互转换的可行性与现实状况还未被关注。在属性描述的基础上,该文引入序关系的思想,提出基于特征序列的概念与方法,以此来模拟、分析概念涵义从一般到特殊的渐次生成过程,发掘尚未显性化的中间概念,自动构建出一个语义分类体系。以HowNet(2000版)数据为例,实验表明该方法可以生成一个性质优良、覆盖完全的新的语义分类体系,并反映此前的属性描述在语言知识工程实践中不易察觉的一些问题。
Feature description and taxonomic description are two basic knowledge representations widely employed in lexical semantics. However, the the transformation between them remains an open issue with well discussion. In this paper, we applies the notion of ordering relationship into the feature description, and automatically derive a tax- onomy from general to specific concepts, in which the previous undefined intermediate concepts are revealed. Exper iments on HowNet (2000) show that a semantic taxonomy, with a fine-defined inheritance and a full coverage of all concepts, can be automatically generated by this approach. Further analysis of the output also indicates some underlined defects in the feature description for natural language knowledge engineering.