WNGLOSS(7)

💖 WNGLOSS — the WordNet™ glossary, but make it make sense 💖

okay bestie, so this is wngloss(7) — it's literally the glossary of all the terms used in the WordNet system. it's from the WordNet™ Reference Manual, and no cap, you're gonna want this one bookmarked. 🎀

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✨ NAME ✨

wngloss — glossary of terms used in the WordNet system 🦋

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🌸 DESCRIPTION 🌸

The WordNet Reference Manual is literally just Unix-style manual pages, bestie, all split up into sections like this:

• Section 1 — WordNet User Commands
• Section 3 — WordNet Library Functions
• Section 5 — WordNet File Formats
• Section 7 — Miscellaneous Information about WordNet

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🧚 System Description 🧚

So the WordNet system is basically three things holding hands: lexicographer files, code to convert these files into a database, and search routines and interfaces that show you what's in the database. 💅

The lexicographer files are the ones doing the organizing — they sort nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs into little friend groups of synonyms, and then they describe the relations between those synonym groups. grind(1) is the one that takes those lexicographer files and converts them into a database that encodes all those relations between the synonym groups. Then all the different interfaces to the WordNet database use a shared, common library of search routines to display those relations. 👑

⚠️ heads up bestie: the lexicographer files and the grind(1) program are not generally distributed. so don't come looking for them, they're not in the group chat. 😭

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🎀 Database Organization 🎀

Information in WordNet is organized around logical groupings called synsets. (iconic, we love a good grouping.) Each synset has:

• a list of synonymous words or collocations — like, eg. "fountain pen", "take in" — and
• pointers that describe the relations between this synset and other synsets.

A word or collocation can show up in more than one synset, and in more than one part of speech. main character energy, honestly. The words in a synset are grouped so that they're interchangeable in some context — that's the whole vibe. ✨

Two kinds of relations are represented by pointers: lexical and semantic. Lexical relations hold between semantically related word forms; semantic relations hold between word meanings. These relations include (but are not limited to) hypernymy/hyponymy (superordinate/subordinate), antonymy, entailment, and meronymy/holonymy. 🌀

Nouns and verbs get organized into hierarchies based on the hypernymy/hyponymy relation between synsets. Additional pointers are used to indicate other relations.

Adjectives are arranged in clusters containing head synsets and satellite synsets. Each cluster is organized around antonymous pairs (and occasionally antonymous triplets). The antonymous pairs (or triplets) are indicated in the head synsets of a cluster. Most head synsets have one or more satellite synsets, each of which represents a concept that's similar in meaning to the concept the head synset represents.

The way to picture the adjective cluster organization? Visualize a wheel: head synset = the hub, satellite synsets = the spokes. 🛞 Two or more wheels are logically connected via antonymy, which you can think of as an axle between the wheels. it's giving mechanics, it's giving poetry. 🔥

Pertainyms are relational adjectives and they do not follow the structure I just described. Pertainyms have no antonyms; the synset for a pertainym most often contains only one word or collocation and a lexical pointer to the noun that the adjective is "pertaining to". Participial adjectives have lexical pointers to the verbs they're derived from. 💜

Adverbs are often derived from adjectives, and sometimes they have antonyms; therefore the synset for an adverb usually contains a lexical pointer to the adjective it's derived from. 🍓

💡 if you want the detailed description of the database files and how the data are actually represented, go read wndb(5). that's your girl.

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✨ GLOSSARY OF TERMS ✨

okay bestie, listen up 💖 the WordNet Reference Manual is full of words that mean something very specific here, and some regular English words also mean something extra-special-specific in WordNet docs. So here's the whole dictionary of the dictionary, so you can actually read the reference manual and use the system without being confused. no cap, this section is your bestie.

also, tiny heads-up: everywhere below, when we say word, we mean word or collocation. both. always. periodt.

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• adjective cluster — a lil friend group of adjective synsets organized around antonymous pairs or triplets 🫶 it's got two or more head synsets that represent antonymous concepts, and each one of those head synsets has one or more satellite synsets tagging along.
• attribute — a noun that adjectives express values for. like, the noun weight is an attribute, and the adjectives light and heavy express its values. iconic behavior honestly.
• base form — the form of a word or collocation that inflections get added onto. the og form. the main character form.
• basic synset — syntactically, this is the same thing as a synset. the term shows up in wninput(5) to help explain the differences in entering synsets in lexicographer files.
• collocation — in WordNet, a collocation is a string of two or more words connected by spaces or hyphens 🌸 examples: man-eating shark, blue-collar, depend on, line of products. and in the database files, those spaces get represented as underscore (_) characters. iykyk.
• coordinate — coordinate terms are nouns or verbs that share the same hypernym. siblings basically 💅
• cross-cluster pointer — a semantic pointer that goes from one adjective cluster to a whole other adjective cluster. crossing the friend-group lines.
• derivationally related forms — terms in different syntactic categories that have the same root form and are semantically related. same roots, different category, still connected 💜
• direct antonyms — a pair of words with an associative bond that comes from them frequently co-occurring. and heads up: in adjective clusters, direct antonyms appear only in head synsets.
• domain — a topical classification that a synset has been linked to with a CATEGORY, REGION or USAGE pointer.
• domain term — a synset that belongs to a topical class. it gets further identified as being a CATEGORY_TERM, REGION_TERM or USAGE_TERM.
• entailment — a verb X entails Y if X cannot be done unless Y is, or has been, done. like, you can't do the thing without the other thing having happened. no skipping steps bestie.
• exception list — morphological transformations for words that aren't regular and therefore cannot be processed in an algorithmic manner. the rebels. the ones that need a list of their own 🙈
• group — verb senses that are similar in meaning and have been manually grouped together by a human.
• gloss — every synset contains a gloss, and that gloss is made of a definition and, optionally, example sentences. the definition + receipts ✨
• head synset — a synset inside an adjective cluster that contains at least one word with a direct antonym. the head of the household 👑
• holonym — the name of the whole that the meronym names a part of. Y is a holonym of X if X is a part of Y. so if X is a piece, Y is the whole thing it belongs to.
• hypernym — the generic term used to designate a whole class of specific instances. Y is a hypernym of X if X is a (kind of) Y. the big umbrella term 🌈
• hyponym — the specific term used to designate a member of a class. X is a hyponym of Y if X is a (kind of) Y. the specific lil guy under the umbrella.
• indirect antonym — an adjective in a satellite synset that doesn't have a direct antonym has an indirect antonym via the direct antonym of the head synset. so it's antonym-ing by proxy 🦋
• instance — a proper noun that refers to a particular, unique referent (as opposed to nouns that refer to classes). this is a specific form of hyponym.
• lemma — the lower case ASCII text of a word as found in the WordNet database index files. usually the base form for a word or collocation.
• lexical pointer — a lexical pointer indicates a relation between words in synsets (word forms). word-to-word vibes.
• lexicographer file — files containing the raw data for WordNet synsets, edited by lexicographers, that get input to the grind program to generate a WordNet database. raw data in, database out 💅
• lexicographer id (lex id) — a decimal integer that, when appended onto a lemma, uniquely identifies a sense within a lexicographer file.
• monosemous — having only one sense in a syntactic category. one meaning, one vibe, unbothered.
• meronym — the name of a constituent part of, the substance of, or a member of something. X is a meronym of Y if X is a part of Y.
• part of speech — WordNet defines "part of speech" as either noun, verb, adjective, or adverb. same as syntactic category.
• participial adjective — an adjective that is derived from a verb.
• pertainym — a relational adjective. adjectives that are pertainyms are usually defined by phrases like "of or pertaining to" and they do not have antonyms. a pertainym can point to a noun or to another pertainym.
• polysemous — having more than one sense in a syntactic category. the opposite of monosemous, obviously, and very main character energy.
• polysemy count — the number of senses a word has in a syntactic category, in WordNet.
• postnominal — a postnominal adjective occurs only immediately following the noun that it modifies. it goes after. always after.
• predicative — an adjective that can only be used in predicate positions. if X is a predicate adjective, it can only show up in phrases like "it is X" and never prenominally. never before the noun, bestie.
• prenominal — an adjective that can only occur before the noun it modifies: it cannot be used predicatively. the mirror image of predicative.
• satellite synset — a synset in an adjective cluster that represents a concept similar in meaning to the concept its head synset represents. orbiting the head 🛰️
• semantic concordance — a textual corpus (e.g. the Brown Corpus) and a lexicon (e.g. WordNet) combined so that every substantive word in the text is linked to its appropriate sense in the lexicon via a semantic tag. text + lexicon, holding hands 🤝
• semantic tag — a pointer from a word in a text file to a specific sense of that word in the WordNet database. in a semantic concordance, a semantic tag is represented by a sense key.
• semantic pointer — a semantic pointer indicates a relation between synsets (concepts). concept-to-concept linkage ✨
• sense — a meaning of a word in WordNet. every sense of a word lives in a different synset.
• sense key — the information you need to find a sense in the WordNet database. a sense key combines a lemma field and codes for the synset type, lexicographer id, lexicographer file number, and info about a satellite's head synset if that's required. see senseidx(5) for a description of the format of a sense key 💖
• subordinate — same as hyponym.
• superordinate — same as hypernym.
• synset — a synonym set; a set of words that are interchangeable in some context without changing the truth value of the preposition in which they're embedded.
• troponym — a verb expressing a specific manner elaboration of another verb. X is a troponym of Y if to X is to Y in some manner.
• unique beginner — a noun synset with no superordinate. it's at the very top. nobody above it. the final boss 👑

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okay that's the whole glossary, you're officially fluent in WordNet-speak 🎀

and that's a wrap on the whole page, bestie! this is the WordNet 3.0 manual page, dated Dec 2006, filed under WNGLOSS(7) 🌸 go forth and read the reference manual like the scholar you are 💅✨