NAME

Lingua::Wordnet - Perl extension for access to Wordnet lexical databases.

SYNOPSIS

use Lingua::Wordnet qw(do_findtheinfo);
$text = do_findtheinfo($word, $pos, $ptr_type, $sense_num);

DESCRIPTION

Lingua::Wordnet gives perl developers the ability to retrieve information from the Wordnet 1.6 databases. To quote from the distribution, "WordNet® is an on-line lexical reference system whose design is inspired by current psycholinguistic theories of human lexical memory. English nouns, verbs, adjectives and adverbs are organized into synonym sets, each representing one underlying lexical concept. Different relations link the synonym sets." For more information on Wordnet, see http://www.cogsci.princeton.edu/~wn/ .

At present the only Wordnet API function provided is findtheinfo(), which provides the same information as the Wordnet browser executable. To use this information you must then parse the returned text (an easy feat with perl). The other API search functions (findtheinfo_ds(), index_lookup(), etc.) will be added in the future (or not), and given an OO interface (or not). The Wordnet utility functions won't be duplicated, as perl generally provides a better interface for those tasks.

As an example, Lingua::Wordnet can take a term, for example, "canary":

print do_findtheinfo("canary",1,29,0);

This will print out all (overview, 29) synsets of the noun (1) "canary":

The noun canary has 4 senses (no senses from tagged texts):
1. fink, snitch, stoolpigeon, stoolie, sneak, canary -- (someone 
   acting as an informer or decoy for the police)
2. canary -- ((informal) a female singer)
3. canary yellow, canary -- (a moderate yellow with a greenish tinge)
4. canary, canary bird -- (any of several small Old World finches)

To lookup the holonyms of "canary" sense #4 (above):

print do_findtheinfo("canary",1,13,4);

This will print the holonyms ("canary is a part of .."):

MEMBER OF: Serinus, genus Serinus -- (Old World finches: e.g. 
canaries and serins)

As a last example, to print out the hypernyms ("a __ is a type of canary"):

print do_findtheinfo("canary",1,2,4);

Will result in:

=> finch -- (any of numerous small songbirds with short stout 
   bills adapted for crushing seeds)

Usage

$text = do_findtheinfo($word, $pos, $ptr_type, $sense_num);

This performs exactly like the API routine findtheinfo(). Refer to the Wordnet API documentation for more details. It searches the Wordnet database for $word. $pos is an integer value with the following key:

1    NOUN
2    VERB
3    ADJECTIVE
4    ADVERB

$ptr_type is an integer that determines what type of data is returned, and can take the following values:

1    Antonyms
2    Hypernyms
3    Hyponyms
4    Entailment
5    Similar
6    Member meronym
7    Substance meronym
8    Part meronym
9    Member holonym
10   Substance holonym
11   Part holonym
12   All meronyms
13   All holonyms
14   Cause
15   Participle of verb
16   Also see
17   Pertains to noun or derived from adjective
18   Attribute
19   Verb group
20   Find synonyms
21   Polysemy
22   Verb example sentences and generic frames
23   Noun coordinates
24   Group related senses
25   Hierarchical meronym search
26   Hierarchical holonym search
27   Not used
28   Find keywords by substring
29   Show all synsets for word

$sense_num is also an integer which determines which sense number of $word is looked up.

NOTES

Please let me know if you use this module, or could use additional functionality. Although I may not be able to add functionality immediately, it will help to motivate knowing that the module is being used.

COPYRIGHT

Copyright 1999 Dan Brian. All rights reserved.

This module is free software; you can redistribute it and/or modify it under the same terms as Perl itself.

D. Brian, dbrian@clockwork.net

SEE ALSO

perl(1).

cpanm Lingua::Wordnet

perl -MCPAN -e shell
install Lingua::Wordnet