Homonymy in natural language processes: A representation using Pustejovsky's Qualia Structure and ontological information

This paper presents a proposal for the semantic treatment of ambiguous homographic forms in Brazilian Portuguese, and to offer linguistic strategies for its computational implementation in Systems of Natural Language Processing (SNLP). Pustejovsky's Generative Lexicon was used as a theoretical model. From this model, the Qualia Structure - QS (and the Formal, Telic, Agentive and Constitutive roles) was selected as one of the linguistic and semantic expedients for the achievement of disambiguation of homonym forms. So that analyzed and treated data could be manipulated, we elaborated a Lexical Knowledge Base (LKB) where lexical items are correlated and interconnected by different kinds of semantic relations in the QS and ontological information.

Knowledge Representation and Orthophemism: A Reflection Aiming to a Concept

Characteristics of speech, especially figures of speech, are used by specific communities or domains, and, in this way, reflect their identities through their choice of vocabulary. This topic should be an object of study in the context of knowledge representation once it deals with different contexts of production of documents. This study aims to explore the dimensions of the concepts of euphemism, dysphemism, and orthophemism, focusing on the latter with the goal of extracting a concept which can be included in discussions about subject analysis and indexing. Euphemism is used as an alternative to a non-preferred expression or as an alternative to an offensive attribution-to avoid potential offense taken by the listener or by other persons, for instance, pass away. Dysphemism, on the other hand, is used by speakers to talk about people and things that frustrate and annoy them-their choice of language indicates disapproval and the topic is therefore denigrated, humiliated, or degraded, for instance, kick the bucket. While euphemism tries to make something sound better, dysphemism tries to make something sound worse. Orthophemism (Allan and Burridge 2006) is also used as an alternative to expressions, but it is a preferred, formal, and direct language of expression when representing an object or a situation, for instance, die. This paper suggests that the comprehension and use of such concepts could support the following issues: possible contributions from linguistics and terminology to subject analysis as demonstrated by Talamo et al. (1992); decrease of polysemy and ambiguity of terms used to represent certain topics of documents; and construction and evaluation of indexing languages. The concept of orthophemism can also serves to support associative relationships in the context of subject analysis, indexing, and even information retrieval related to more specific requests.

Evaluation of indexed language used in collective catalogues of university libraries: a socio-cognitive study using verbal protocol

The use of indexing language in university libraries collective catalogs and the socio-cognitive context of indexing and users were evaluated. The methodology consisted of a diagnostic study elaboration of the functioning and treatment procedures of the indexing information from nine libraries of the UNESP Network, representing the Civil Engineering, Pedagogy and Dentistry areas from a data collection using the Verbal Protocol introspective technique in the Individual and Group forms. The study conducted a reflection upon the statements issued by the seventy-two participating individuals whose the results revealed unsatisfactory results about the use of the Subject Headings List of the BIBLIODATA Network, indexing language utilizing by the UNESP Libraries Network, Brazil, in the representation and in the information retrieval process in the ATHENA catalog, about the sequent aspects of the language: lack of specialized vocabulary as well as updated; lack of remissives and of specific headings, and others. We have concluded that the adequate use of indexing languages of specialized scientific areas becomes by means of evaluation as to updating, specificity and compatibility in order to meet the needs of indexing and information retrieval.