An Interactive Knowledge Maintenance Algorithm for Recasting WordNet Synonym-Set Definitions into Lojbanic Primitives, then into Lojbanic English

Abstract

Lojban, a constructed interlingua, has a small number of predicates–totaling 1342. In our prior independent work, involving lojban for machine translation in parallel, when converting English into lojbanic English (our extensions), the number of test cases was too small, because of the lack of a rich lojban vocabulary. There is a procedure for creating new, composite, lojban predicates in terms of existing predicates. Although workable, it lacks an architectural framework that is consistent with English word-sense usage, and enables efficient production of thousands of new predicates.

To address lojban’s insufficient vocabulary, we developed an interactive algorithm which will recast WordNet synonym sets’ (synset) definitions into existing lojban primitive predicates. The output is in terms of our lojbanic English. The final output is a new dictionary of synset definitions, with lojban semantics, but using lojbanic English. The linguistic engineer, interactively, lojbanizes a synset’s definition. Thus, the synsets are well defined, unambiguous, and there are no circular definitions–no confusion–because lojban primitives have these properties.

If a relevant subset, e.g., 1 / 10, of the unique synset definitions–totaling 116718, are converted into lojban predicates, then 1.945 man years would be required for this effort. This algorithm can be run in parallel on distinct subsets, employing many users.