Abstract
A WordNet is a digital network of semantically linked words, which are organized around the notion of synsets of a language. A synset is a set of synonyms with same part-of-speech (mostly), which are potential to be interchanged in usage at certain contexts of expression and information interchange within or across languages. The presence of synsets in a WordNet attests the basic argument that a single word can refer to multiple concepts (i.e., polysemy), and reversely, several words can point to a single concept (i.e., synonymy). Based on the general notion of WordNet, it is possible to assume that synsets can be universal or language specific. In this chapter, I have made an attempt to critically evaluate the concept of ‘synset’ in WordNet as well as the problems of defining language-specific synsets (LSSs) for the Indian languages with special reference to Bangla. Defining LSSs, unlike those of universal synsets, is a real challenge, since the very idea of language specificity is still a fuzzy notion in the domain of lexicology, lexical knowledge representation and language understanding. Therefore, I shall first try to address the question of language specificity; explore the existence and use of LSS in a language; define the methods for LSS selection; and finally refer to the process of LSS generation in a language, with reference to Bangla, within a network of cross-cultural lexical percolation.
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Dash, N.S. (2017). Defining Language-Specific Synsets in IndoWordNet: Some Theoretical and Practical Issues. In: Dash, N., Bhattacharyya, P., Pawar, J. (eds) The WordNet in Indian Languages. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-10-1909-8_3
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