[topicmapmail] Synonyms

[Murray Altheim]

Lieberknecht, Katharina wrote:
> Hi all,
> 
> TMs can be used to create an electronic thesaurus. A common relationship 
> of thesauri
> Is "being-synonym-to".
> How do I code this relationship in xtm?
> 
> For example with the terms "number of document" and "signature"
> Since the two terms are surely not everywhere used as synonyms, I want
> Scope the relationship of the two terms being synonyms to "astrium".
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Option 1
> 
> Topic  baseNameString  "number of document"
> Topic  baseNameString  "signature"
> 
> Association
> Scope          "astrium"
> Instance of    "is-synonym-to"
> Member role  "term"  topicRef "number of document"
> Member role  "term"  topicRef "signature"
> 
> ---------------------------------------------------------------------
> Option 2
> 
> Topic baseName scope "astrium"
>          baseNameString "number of document"
>          variant-parameters "is-synonym-to"
>          variantName - resourceRef  "signature"
> 
> 
> ------------------------------------------------------------------------
> Or are there other and maybe better alternatives to code it?

Kathy,

I think the real question here is what is your intent in creating these
relationships? If the idea is that a synonym is being used as an
alternate name for a topic, then Option 2 is certainly viable, with the
idea that the synonym can stand in as a true alternate name for the
same subject -- noting that in real life, few words are truly able to
perform that task universally, absent context. I'm a bit wary of this
option, because I think it conflates the TM idea of variant names with
the semantically-different notion of synonymity. I wouldn't judge it
necessarily "incorrect" because TMs are tools to solve problems, and
this might solve your problem even if some Semantic God might strike
you down with thunderbolts for doing it. :-)

If your purpose is to create a thesaurus, I'd say Option 1 is your best
bet, and certainly "safer", in that you're not stating that all synonyms
universally name the same subject, but that they're merely synonyms, i.e.,
you're not changing the semantics of the statement in encoding it in TM.
Furthermore, if it's a thesaurus tool you're creating, having synonyms
as associations means you could do a lot more with it, as you could
then scope the associations themselves, provide various roles on each
synonym relationship, etc.  You'd have a much richer "toolkit" for
establishing relationships between words.

Hope this was helpful,

Murray

...........................................................................
Murray Altheim                         http://kmi.open.ac.uk/people/murray/
Knowledge Media Institute
The Open University, Milton Keynes, Bucks, MK7 6AA, UK                    .

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