[topicmapmail] Dictionary

[Bob Parks]

Lars,
Thanks for the response. You asked:
>Are you asking for
>advice on how to turn your dictionary into a topic map? How to
>represent it as a topic map? How to implement searching in it once it
>has become a topic map? Or how to integrate the dictionary with other
>data that is in topic map form?

The answer is "yes" ... ;-)    We would like to do all those things. 
The most important are (1) representing the dictionary as a topic 
map; and (2) integrating the dictionary with other text represented 
as topic maps.

(1) We have a data model for presenting the dictionary now, and are 
considering how to display it with visual tools such as InXight's 
StarTree.  The user needs to have as few visible links as possible 
between one word and the next - preferably:
	WORD:RELATION:WORD.
But our synonymy is linked to particular definitions, so we then have:
	WORD:CONCEPT/DEFINITION:RELATION:WORD
And the entries must take account of part-of-speech (POS), so we have:
	WORD:POS:DEF:RELATION:WORD:
And Homographs (words spelled alike but semantically dissimilar) require:
	WORD:HOMO:POS:DEF:RELATION:WORD

Most of this information is usually not needed by the user, so it can 
be suppressed.   The question is, how would be best to turn this sort 
of a semantic model into a topic map.

(2) I have been assuming that the dictionary can be linked with any 
text regardless of whether that text is stored/represented as a topic 
map.  But I am wondering if there is a way to more intimately bring 
the dictionary and topic maps together. If topic maps are "indexes" 
of text (i.e., a particular way of representing and storing entries 
that function as an index of the text), then there must be effective 
tools for getting the text organized - i.e., indexing the text by 
linking the words with particular concepts or concept types.  The 
basic perspective behind my interest is to use the dictionary 
definitions/concepts as a "starter kit" for indexers or creators of 
topic maps, where the concepts/topics they index may or may not be 
represented in the dictionary.

Hope this helps....  though I may only have communicated my lack of 
understanding.
Thanks,
Bob




-- 

* Robert Parks - mailto:bobp@clarityconnect.com - Wordsmyth 
Collaboratory - (607) 272-2190
* The best dictionary and integrated thesaurus on the web
can be bookmarked at http://www.wordsmyth.net
* "To imagine a language is to imagine a form of life."
* "Philosophers have only interpreted the world. The point, however, 
is to change it."