Using WordNet and SUMO to Determine Source Domains ofConceptual MetaphorsSiaw-Fong Chung
Graduate Institute of
Linguistics
National Taiwan University
No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road
Taipei, 106 Taiwan
claricefong6376@hotmail.com

Kathleen Ahrens
Graduate Institute of Linguistics
National Taiwan University
No. 1, Sec. 4, Roosevelt Road
Taipei, 106 Taiwan
kathleenahrens@yahoo.com

Chu-Ren Huang
Graduate Institute of Linguistics
Academia Sinica
No.128, Sec. 2, Academia
Road, Nankang
Taipei, 115 Taiwan
churen@gate.sinica.edu.tw

Abstract

In previous work by Ahrens et al. (2003) and Chung et al. (2003a, 2003b), the extraction ofconceptual metaphors was carried out based on prototypicality. Based on this view, the mostprototypical mappings of source to target domains in the corpora help determining theMapping Principle of the conceptual metaphors (Ahrens 2002). However, this approach islimited in the aspect that the identification of source domains must be manually determined.
Therefore, the purpose of this paper is to suggest a way to reduce the manual work required
for the determination of the source domain as well as to operationalize the steps to define
different source domains. This paper incorporates the WordNet lexical representation and
SUMO ontology in the identification of the related nodes to a group of linguistics expressions.
The lexicons in the WordNet and SUMO are linked through works such as Niles and Pease(2003).
1

Introduction

The Conceptual Mapping (CM) Model (Ahrens 2002) proposed that a specific Mapping Principle can begenerated through observing the source and target domain mappings in conceptual metaphors. For
instance, the list of words in Table 1 below were suggested by Ahrens, Chung & Huang (2003) to berelated to the source domain of PERSON. They extracted a total of 2000 instances from the Academic
Sinica Balanced Corpus of Mandarin Chinese. From these instances, they extracted metaphoricalexpressions through observing the source-target domain mappings. For instance, chengzhang ‘growth’
below shows a mapping between the concrete source domain of PERSON and the abstract domain of
ECONOMY. The analyses were carried out manually.
Table 1: ECONOMY IS A PERSON
成長 (growth)
成長期 (growth period)
命脈 (lifeblood)
成長 (grow)
復甦 (regain consciousness)恢復 (recover)衰退 (dysfunction)病狀 (symptoms)
衰頹(weakness and degeneration)
衰退 (to become dysfunctional)惡化 (deteriorate)

Ahrens, Chung and Huang (2003) then counted the number of instances of which these expressions
occurred. Based on the most frequent (i.e., the most prototypical) mappings, the Mapping Principles(MP) were suggested. For instance, the MP for ECONOMY IS A PERSON in Table 1 is ‘economy isperson because people have a life cycle and economy has growth cycle.’
In this paper, we further extend the work of Ahrens et al. (2003) but minimize the manual workrequired when determining the source domains. We suggest that the identification of source domains
can be solidified through examining a) the WordNet senses and explanations and b) the SUMO nodes

and their definitions. By doing so, we propose a way to operationalize the steps in defining source
domains.
This extension of the CM Model is aided by studies linking the lexicon in WordNet and SUMO suchas in Niles and Pease (2003). After the links were established, the ontological nodes in SUMO were
provided hyperlinks to their semantic definitions by WordNet. Also facilitating this analysis is the workof Huang (2004) in which all the nodes in SUMO are available in both Chinese and English through the
Academia Sinica Bilingual Ontological WordNet (BOW; available at http://bow.sinica.edu.tw).
2

Methodology

Our methodology involves two major steps, i.e., extracting metaphorical instances from the corpus andexamining the WordNet explanation and SUMO nodes.
For the corpus search, a total of 1062 instances of shiye事業 ‘career’ were extracted from theAcademia Balance Corpus of Mandarin Chinese. All metaphorical instances were manually marked. A
metaphorical mapping occurred when there was a mapping from the source (such as PERSON) to thetarget domain (CAREER). For instance, in the phrase shiye youhuan yishi 事業憂患意識 ‘the worried
consciousness of career,’ the abstract target domain CAREER is mapped onto the consciousness of
PERSON. What makes this paper different is that we did not categorize all the expressions according tosource domains at this stage. We used WordNet and SUMO instead to determine the categorization of
the metaphorical expressions found.
3

Results

For the A total of 59 types (84 tokens) of metaphorical expressions were found. These instances arelisted in Table 2 on the next page.
Upon keying in the target word such as yishi ‘consciousness’ (highlighted in the Table 2) into Sinica
BOW, there were a list of senses suggested by the WordNet lexical knowledge database. The mostconcrete sense was pulled out from the list to further search for their related SUMO nodes (which were
provided after the explanation of each WordNet sense).
Table 2 : Metaphorical expressions related to shiye ‘career’
Conceptual
Conceptual
TokensTokensMetaphors
Metaphors

Conceptual
Metaphors

Tokens

新創

1

紮實

1

溶進...之中

1

創造

5

起(步)

1

收起來

1

開創

1

(走)向

2

投身...中

1

共創

1

第一(步)

1

基礎

5

再創

2

闖

2

追求

4

挑戰

1

關

5

風險

1

策略

2

關卡

1

供輸

1

趨勢

3

過程

1

賭

1

(幕後)功臣

1

前途

2

投向

1

異(軍)突起

1

前程

1

投下

1

改革

1

競爭

1

衝刺

1

兵符

1

抗爭

1

角色

1

憂患意識

1

打拚

1

大舞台

2

搖身一變

1

掙

1

階梯

1

創傷

1

拼

1

登上...位子

1

躍進

1

軌道

1

投入

1

放手

1

轟轟烈烈

2

玩掉

1

生命力

1

走(上)

1

包袱

1

壯大

1

火車頭

1

開發

1

成長

1

退出

2

Table 3 shows the example of yishi ‘consciousness’ as well as other examples taken from Table 2 inwhich their related WordNet senses and SUMO nodes are listed.
Table 3: Defining Source Domains through WordNet and SUMO
WordNetExpressions
Explanations
SUMO Nodes
Senses憂患(意識)

1: consciousness

挑戰

4: challenge

策略

6: ambush基礎
軌道

1: foundation
2: track

an alert cognitive state in which you are
Awake (清醒)aware of yourself and your situationa call to engage in a contest or fightRequesting (請求)the act of concealing yourself and lying in ViolentContest(暴力性的競爭)
wait to attack by surpriselowest supporting part of a structure
Region(區域)a pair of parallel rails providing a runway TransportationDevice(運輸工具)
for wheels

For the expressions in Table 3, we first searched for their WordNet senses and examined their WordNet
explanations. The shaded words in Table 3 above provided the cue to which source domains these
expressions belong. For instance, the concept of cognitive state might refer to a PERSON; contest andattack to WAR whereas rails and wheels to VEHICLE.
However, the sorting of source domains using the WordNet alone was not enough. For instance, theWordNet explanation regarding jichu ‘foundation’基礎in Table 2 yielded the idea structure. An
analysis using the WordNet alone cannot identify whether it is referring to the structure of an artifact or
any other object. Hence, the second step involved examining the related SUMO nodes. All WordNet
senses are linked to the related SUMO nodes, which are listed on the rightmost column of Table 2.
Through examining the SUMO nodes, we decide whether a group of expressions belongs to the same
concept, i.e, the concept of the source domain onto which the target term CAREER was mapped.
In order to display more specifically which ontological nodes correspond to one another, this paper
shows the mechanisms through using the instances from CAREER IS A PERSON
4Defining the Source Domain of PERSONIn this section, we unfold how the source domain of PERSON was obtained. The expressions in (1)below were found related to the source domain of PERSON.
(1)

憂患(意識)
創傷
放手
生命力
成長
起(步)
(走)向
第一(步)

‘ the worried consciousness’‘wound’‘let go’‘the force to live’‘grow’‘start a step’‘walk towards’‘first step’

For these expressions, the search in WordNet and SUMO produced the explanations in Table 4:Table 4: CAREER IS A PERSON and its related WordNet senses and SUMO Nodes
Expressions WordNet Senses Explanations
SUMO Nodesan alert cognitive state in which you are
Awake (清醒)aware of yourself and your situation
an emotional wound or shock often having
EmotionalState (情緒狀態)
long-lasting effects

憂患(意識)

1: consciousness

創傷

1: trauma

放手

1: let_go

be relaxed

EmotionalState (情緒狀態)生命力

1: life_form

Organism (生物體)成長

3: mature起(步)1: paceany living entity
develop and reach maturity; undergo
maturationa step in walking or running(走)向1: foot

informal or colloquial synonyms of 'walk' Walking (行走)第一(步)1: pacea step in walking or running

Growth (生長)Walking (行走)
Walking(行走)From Table 3, all the metaphorical expressions are related to the following five nodes:(2)(a) Awake (清醒)(b) EmotionalState (情緒狀態)(c) Organism (生物體)(d) Growth (生長)(e) Walking (行走)

Although no obvious pattern was found among the nodes in (2), when their definitions weresearched for in SUMO, these nodes showed linkage to one another, as in (3). The linking concept, i.e.,‘Organism,’ is shaded in all the definitions in (3).
(3)(a) Awake: Attribute applies to Organisms that are neither Unconscious nor Asleep.
(b) EmotionalState: The Class of Attributes that denote emotional states of Organisms.
(c) Organism: Generally, a living individual, including all Plants and Animals.
(d) Growth: The Process of biological development in which an Organism or part of an
Organism changes its form or its size.
(e) Walking: Any BodyMotion which is accomplished by means of the legs of an Organism onland for the purpose of moving from one point to another.

From investigating the SUMO definitions, all the expressions in Table 4 were found related to‘Organism’ in one way or another. Among these five SUMO nodes in (3), 3(a) and (b) are related to theupper node of ‘State of mind’ or a psychological process. 3(c) and (d) are linked to the ‘Organism’ andthe ‘Organism Process’ or biological process. ‘Walking’ in which (3e) is related ‘Body motion’ in
SUMO.
What can be concluded from this discussion is that there were overlaps between all the expressions
in Table 4 which were identified through the CM Model. The linking concept between them is‘Organism.’ However, the concept of ‘Organism’ is too broad because it comprises all living things,
including all plants and animals. For the conceptual metaphors, we are looking for source domains thatare in contact with human conceptualization, i.e., more concrete concepts which human can easily recall
when describing the abstract idea. Furthermore, we are not only looking for any organisms which havethe abilities to grow and to walk, but one with a state of mind and emotional state. Based on these
attributes, we rule out the possibility of PLANT and ANIMAL, but suggested that these expressions are
related to HUMAN or PERSON.

5

PERSON in other Metaphor

In order to verify our findings regarding CAREER IS A PERSON, this paper also carried out the sameprocedures with the target domain of CULTURE. A total of 2000 instances was extracted from theAcademia Balance Corpus of Mandarin Chinese. From these 2000 instances, 335 metaphoricalexpressions were extracted manually. From these 335 instances, 88 were found related to the source
domain of PERSON. These instances constituted the following related WordNet senses and SUMO
nodes (See Table 5).
Table 5: CULTURE IS A PERSON and its related WordNet senses and SUMO Nodes
Expressions WordNet Senses Explanations
SUMO Nodes

行為

the organic phenomenon that distinguishes
Living (活的)living organisms from nonliving ones
the organized beliefs of a period or group or
2: thought
Proposition (命題)individual
the process of an individual organism
growing organically; a purely biological
6: growth
unfolding of events involved in an organism Growth (生長)changing gradually from a simple to a more
complex level
thoughtfulness about your own situation and TraitAttribute
3: introspectiveness(人格特質)
feelings
the property of being able to survive and1: animation
Living (活的)growexcessive emotionalism or irritability andPsychologicalAttribute
1: temperament
excitability (especially when displayed(心理屬性)
openly)1: lifeblood
the blood considered as the seat of vitality Blood (血液)the immaterial part of a person; the actuating
2: soulHuman (人類)cause of an individual life
1: foot
informal or colloquial synonyms of 'walk' " Walking (行走)reach, make, or come to a decision about
IntentionalPsychologicalProcess
3: decidesomething(意向性心理歷程)
4: behavior
manner of acting or conducting oneself
BodyMotion (身體的移動)滅絕

1: die_out

生命

3: life

思想

成長

反省
生命力
氣質
命脈
心靈
(走) 向（v)決定become extinct

Death (死亡)

From Table 5, the SUMO nodes in the rightmost columns were found related to HUMAN (or PERSON).
These nodes have the following definitions in SUMO, all of which are related to Organism in one way or
another:(4)(a) Living (活的): This Attribute applies to Organisms that are alive.
(b) Proposition (命題) :Propositions are Abstract entities that express a complete thought or aset of such thoughts.
(c) Growth (生長): The Process of biological development in which an Organism or part of an
Organism changes its form or its size.
(d) TraitAttribute (人格特質): Attributes that indicate the behavior/personality traits of an
Organism.
(e) PsychologicalAttribute (心理屬性): Attributes that characterize the mental or behavioral lifeof an Organism.
(f) Blood (血液): A fluid present in Animals that transports Nutrients to and waste products
away from various BodyParts.

(g) Human(人類): Modern man, the only remaining species of the Homo genus.
(h) Walking(行走): Any BodyMotion which is accomplished by means of the legs of an
Organism on land for the purpose of moving from one point to another.
(i) IntentionalPsychologicalProcess(意向性心理歷程): An IntentionalProcess that can berealized entirely within the mind or brain of an Organism.
(j) BodyMotion(身體的移動): Any Motion where the agent is an Organism and the patient is a
BodyPart.
(k) Death(死亡): The Process of dying.
The target domain of CULTURE produced more instances than the CAREER metaphor. Therefore, acomparison can be made. From the information in Table 5, the first decision that the source domain
could be PERSON was observed through the SUMO nodes, all of which can be related to HUMAN. The
further investigation of their SUMO definitions in (4) found that these nodes are related to ‘Organism’by possessing ‘thoughts,’ ‘biological development,’ ‘animals,’ ‘body parts,’ ‘modern man,’ ‘Homo
genus,’ ‘body motion,’ ‘mind or brain’ and ‘the process of dying.’
In other words, the analysis showed that there is a connectivity from the beginning linguistic
expressions (metaphorical instances) to the WordNet explanations and SUMO nodes (Table 5) andlastly to the explanation of the SUMO nodes (example (4) above). The connectivity can be drawn by
first defining the linguistic expressions within a source domain, as shown in Figure 1:

PERSON

Organism
CULTURE
反省
生命
生產力
成長
氣質

意識
生命力
創傷

TraitAttribute(人格特質)

Living(活的)BiologicalAttribute(生物屬性)PsychologicalAttribute(心理屬性)(走)向Growth(生長)Walking(行走)Organism(生物體)CAREER
EmotionalState(情緒狀態)

(a)

(b)

Figure 1: Representations of the Metaphorical Instances According to Source and Target
Domians and their Relationship with WordNet and SUMOThe overlapping area between CULTURE and CAREER in Figure 1(a) constitutes lexical items that are
more lexicalized as they can apply to more target domains than the other items. In other words, lexical
items within several overlapping source domains (such as chengzhang 成長 ‘growth’ and zouxiang (走)向 ‘walk towards’) tend to be lexicalized faster than the other lexical items. All the lexical items in 1(a)can be mapped onto the ontological concepts of SUMO in 1(b).

6Conclusion

The results from the WordNet lexical representation and SUMO searches prove two major points: First,
the manual analysis made using the CM Model in previous studies can be made more automatized.
Second, there is conceptual connectivity between the expressions found within a source domain. Thisconnectivity can be established through observing the overlapped concepts in all the expressions within
the same source domain.
The approach proposed by this paper takes a linguistic perspective in which instances are first
analyzed based on a linguistic model of metaphors. In order to computerized the process of extracting
source domain from the instances, a large amount of data has to be collected. The project has covered
numerous source domains with corpora instances of metaphorical examples. When these instances are
fully coded with the linguistic information, a computerized program can be designed for the extraction
purposes.
From the perspective of the linguists, this analysis provides the evidence to pinpoint at which levelof knowledge conceptual metaphors occur. From the perspective of anthropology and language
processing, this study provides the linguistic evidence to understand the mental representation of humanwhen expressing metaphors.
Acknowledgements

We would like to thank the CLSW-5 reviewers for their comments on this paper.
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