G eo N ames W ordnet (geown): extracting wordnets from G eo N ames (2019)

Abstract: This paper introduces a new multilingual lexicon of geographical place names. The names are based on (and linked to) the GeoNames collection. Each location is treated as a new synset, which is linked by instance_hypernym to a small set of supertypes. These supertypes are linked to the collaborative interlingual index, based on mappings from GeoDomainWordnet. If a location is already in the interlingual index, then it is also linked to the entry, using mappings from the Geo-Wordnet. Finally, if GeoNames places the location in a larger location, this is linked using the mero_location link. Wordnets can be built for any language in GeoNames, we give results for those wordnets in the Open Multilingual Wordnet. We discuss how it is mapped and the characteristics of the extracted wordnets.

## introduction the aim of this paper is to create a large multilingual lexicon of place names, through the use of the vast open source database geonames. 1 wordnets generally contain open-class words, with only a few proper names. some names need to be there, as they are derivationally related to open-class words (such as vratislavian "a native of wrocław"). however the general trend is to leave proper names out, and instead link them through other specialist lexicons @xcite . the goal is for specialists on names to curate names, with wordnets only having to maintain a smaller collection of links. another popular approach is to merge completely, into a vast combined resources such as yago @xcite or babelnet @xcite . this can cause problems when a subsidiary resource updates: propagating the corrections into the merged resource is an unsolved problem. for example, the version of geonames used in babelnet 4.0 is from april 2015, a four year difference. 2 apart from general merging, there are two main resources made from merging wordnet with geonames. the first, geo-wordnet @xcite links locations in princeton @xcite to geonames (we will call this gwn-link). the second, geowordnet @xcite links the supertypes in geonames to pwn synsets (we will call this gwnsuper). these are complimentary mappings, but as far as we know, no one has combined them. ge-owordnetdomains @xcite further refines the mappings from geowordnet and adds some more internal structure. both geowordnet and geowordnetdomains link the synsets to english and italian (the multiwordnet @xcite and italwordnet @xcite respectively), but do not consider other languages. all the resources are described in more detail in section 2. in this paper, we introduce a method for creating lexicons of placenames for any language in geonames: the geoname wordnet. each location is treated as a new synset, which is linked by instance_hypernym foot_2 to a small set of supertypes, linked to the collaborative interlingual index, based on mappings from geodomainwordnet. if a location is already in the interlingual index, then it is also linked to the entry, using mappings from the geo-wordnet. finally, we add some additional structure, if geonames places the location in a larger location, this is linked using the mero_location link. this is described in section 3. the code to create the lexicons is available at https://github.com/ fcbond/geonames-wordnet . we present some statistics of the resulting word-net, along with some examples, in section 4, and finish with some conclusions and ideas for future work in section 5. ## resources we give descriptions of the major resources we use here. all of geonames' information is downloadable and can be found on their website. ## geonames wordnet (gnwn) our goal is the same as geo(-)(domain)wordnet: to link the data in geonames to wordnets. we take advantage of the work they have done already to make what we believe is a better integration in the following ways. the code to and revised mappings used to create the lexicons is available at https://github.com/ fcbond/geonames-wordnet . entries that are not already in cili will not be added -as geonames already curates and manages the geonames ids, it is better to not duplicate effort. instead we will encourage wordnet users to add places to geonames. ## results we show the sizes of the wordnets created for all the curated languages in the open multilingual wordnet 2.0 @xcite , along with the lemma for the continent of asia ( : 6255147) in ## conclusion and future work we have created a large collection of lexicons of placenames: the geoname wordnet. looking at 40 languages we had over 3.6 million locations with over 4.6 million senses. we can create lexicons for many more languages: all of those in geonames. we hope that this is one more step toward a completely open, linguistic knowledge base. each location is treated as a new synset, which is linked by instance_hypernym to a small set of supertypes based on geonames categories. these are linked to the collaborative interlingual index, based on an extended set of mappings from geodomainwordnet. if a location is already in the interlingual index, then it is also linked to the entry, using mappings from the geo-wordnet. finally, we added some additional structure, if geonames places the location in a larger location, this is linked using the mero_location link. the data and code to produce geonames wordnet are released under the mit licence. we have some ideas for future work: