This is the first Lexical Knowledge Base [...]]]> Machines need computing tools that are more powerful than conventional dictionaries for tasks like information extraction, disambiguation of word meanings, etc. This is in fact the function of the Euskal WordNet application —developed by the IXA Group (UPV/EHU)— which can already be consulted and downloaded free of charge.

This is the first Lexical Knowledge Base (LKB) developed for the Basque language: a “semantic dictionary” or “store” that compiles and organises lexical and semantic information. “It’s like a database, but the difference is that it not only gathers the usual information of a dictionary —the meanings of words and their corresponding definitions and examples—, it also links the concepts with each other,” pointed out Eneko Agirre, an IXA Group computer programmer.

If we look up the entry hatz (“finger”, “digit” or “toe” in Basque), the result is as follows: “Each of the five appendages at the end of human hands and feet.” That is what the term means. But apart from this information, we can get much more: the finger/toe is an appendage of the body; the thumb is a finger; fingers are part of the hand; hands, in turn, are part of the arm and fingers are used to touch objects, etc. In short: all the concepts are interrelated hierarchically. Every concept is also related to its equivalents in other languages: digit, hatz, dedo, dixito and dit.

Consulting the word hatz in Basque WordNet.

This database is tremendously useful in various fields, like machine translation, information extraction, disambiguation of word meanings and for question-answer systems. In machine translation, for example, the system has to understand which word it is translating, a task for which it needs a “semantic dictionary” of this type. “For a quality translation, it is necessary to be able to distinguish the most appropriate meaning from among the various ones,” stressed Agirre.

“Our aim (within the framework of QTLeap European project) is to improve the quality of machine translations by using WordNet,” he pointed out.

Over the 2014-2015 academic year, the university Master’s degree in Language Analysis and Processing (LAP) that the IXA Group will be running at the UPV/EHU will be studying the Basque WordNet and other language technologies used to develop similar applications.

Master’s in Language Analysis and Processing (LAP)

The aim of the University Master’s in Language Analysis and Processing is to analyse language and to learn about the techniques and applications available for processing it with the help of the computer.

This Master’s has been organised by the UPV/EHU’s IXA Group and is geared towards anybody who combines linguistics and computing: philologists and linguistics experts, computing and telecommunications engineers, mathematicians, translators, etc. To apply for it, it is enough to be in possession of a University degree, have some experience and display some interest in the subject.

The Master’s will take one year and a half and the classes will be held at the Computing Faculty of the UPV/EHU-University of the Basque Country. It will be possible to spread it over two or three academic years (to cater for professionals who are working).

The pre-registration period is already open, and applications will be accepted until June 30. For further information on the Master’s, please check out http://ixa.si.ehu.es/master/.

The Basque language academy, Euskaltzaindia, launched in 2008 the Lexikoaren Behatokia project (“The Lexicon Observatory”), led by Andoni Sagarna. The objective of the project was [...]]]> Topics : The Lexikoaren Behatokia project (X. Artola) + Enriching EDBL with Hiztegi Batua (Gorka Labaka – Xabier Artola)
Speakers: Xabier Artola and Gorka Labaka
Day: December 11th 2013, Wednesday

The Basque language academy, Euskaltzaindia, launched in 2008 the Lexikoaren Behatokia project (“The Lexicon Observatory”), led by Andoni Sagarna. The objective of the project was to create a labelled and linguistically annotated corpus for research. In order to carry out the corpus, it was expected to use a variety of sources, mostly media, especially general interest ones. In late 2012, the corpus consisted of 26,565,924 words, and has been expanded year after year. Euskaltzaindia, the IXA research group, the Elhuyar foundation and UZEI collaborate on the project.

The Lexikoaren Behatokia corpus is available here.

On the other hand, the latest version of the prescriptive dictionary Hiztegi Batua has provided new entries for the Basque lexical database EDBL. This enriching process was explained in the seminar.

Speakers: Hugo Quispe and Richard Castro (Universidad UNSAAC of Cusco, Peru), ………………Olatz Arregi, Xabier Artola eta Kepa Sarasola (Ixa Group) Title: Primera aproximación al procesamiento automático del Quechua ………(First steps towards Quechua’s processing.) Date: November 15, 2012, Thursday Time: 16:00–17:00 Where: Computer Science Faculty, Room 3.2

ABSTRACT These two sessions cover some of the most important aspects of Computational Semantics and Pragmatics including: * Lexical Representations and Argument Structure * Parsing with constituency or dependency structure * Co-reference resolution [...]]]> Speaker: Rodolfo Delmonte, (Università Ca’ Foscari, Venice, Italy).
Date: January 17 and 18, 2011
Time: 16:00 – 19:30
Where: Computer Science Faculty

ABSTRACT
These two sessions cover some of the most important aspects of Computational Semantics and Pragmatics including:
* Lexical Representations and Argument Structure
* Parsing with constituency or dependency structure
* Co-reference resolution
* Underspecified arguments
* Argumentative structure, subjectivity, factuality and sentiment analysis
* Textual Entailment
The talks follow a linguistically motivated approach with the use of ontologies and similar resources to deal with co-reference or textual entailment tasks. The talks are accompanied by several applications and demonstrations.

SHORT BIO
Rodolfo Delmonte is Associate Professor of Computational Linguistics at the University of Venice where he is in charge of the corresponding course at BA, MA and Ph.D. level. Specialist in experimental phonetics and computational linguistics he presents his research work at major international conferences and publishes articles in international journals. He is referee for and publishes in Speech Communication, International Journal of Speech Technologies, Journal of Natural Language Engineering and international conferences every year. He has been invited speaker in a number of conferences, teacher at international schools, and invited professor in the last five years in Boulder, Colorado at the CLSR, in Besançon at the Centre Tesnière, in Dallas at UTD. Hot topics of his latest research include the following: Implicit entities and antecedents of omitted and underspecified arguments; Argumentative Analysis, Subjectivity, Factuality and Sentiment Analysis.

project.cgm.unive.it/delmonte.html