=Paper=
{{Paper
|id=Vol-3246/14_paper103
|storemode=property
|title=The Ontological Approach of Modern Greek Morphology
|pdfUrl=https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3246/14_paper103.pdf
|volume=Vol-3246
|authors=Nikos Vasilogamvrakis
|dblpUrl=https://dblp.org/rec/conf/ercimdl/Vasilogamvrakis22
}}
==The Ontological Approach of Modern Greek Morphology==
https://ceur-ws.org/Vol-3246/14_paper103.pdf
The Ontological Approach of Modern Greek Morphology (short paper)
Nikos Vasilogamvrakis1
1
Department of Archives, Library Science and Museology, Ionian University, Corfu, Greece
Abstract
This article comprises a brief overview of my PhD research proposal investigating the
ontological approach of Modern Greek (MG) morphology. Its main objective is to study
contemporary onto-linguistic models in order to form an onto-morphological tool for MG
morphological analysis. The research was motivated by the lack of an ontologically holistic
approach based on the Semantic Web (SW) paradigm to represent MG morphology. After a
brief review on the current ontological setting within the Semantic Web, the respective
morphological framework is determined and placed into the Strong Lexicalist theory justified
by MG morpheme-based nature. Following this, main research questions are defined and the
methodology of the research is presented as an itinerary process between ontological
development, theory and lexical data testing. Finally, the article concludes with some
preliminary research results based on a morpheme-based analysis of indicative MG lexical data
in the MMoOn ontological model.
Keywords 1
Modern Greek morphology, ontologies, Semantic Web, Linguistic Linked Open Data
1. Introduction
The present PhD research was motivated by the lack of an ontological representation and analysis
of MG morphology that integrates the Semantic Web (SW) paradigm. Therefore, it aims to:
● study the current ontological models and form an optimal representational paradigm for MG
morphology in full or in part (derivation and/or inflection and/or composition)
● check, condense, resynthesize or enrich MG morphological theory, where appropriate, under
the framework of the ontological representation
● establish a consistent ontological model, which would ideally represent theory and its
instantiations (data) sufficiently and in separate but interconnected levels
● create an information retrieval (IR) tool for supporting query expansion (QE) e.g. the
productivity of a derivational template, the frequency of a specific morpheme etc.
2. Relation of the work to the state of the art in the field
Morphology focuses on the least meaningful entities within words, called morphemes2, as well as
how words are composed (word formation) or inflected. Except for the extensive linguistic framework
that also includes empirical analysis, the study of language has been triggered by informational models,
among which is the ontological paradigm [1]–[3], that has given totally new perspectives to language
studies as a more effective and functional tool. Language ontological representation has, indeed, proven
to underpin multiple areas of language analysis such as lexicography [4], [5], language annotation and
theory representation [2], ontology-based information extraction (OBIE), text linkage and Information
Retrieval [6], [7] or NLP applications [2].
TPDL2022: 26th International Conference on Theory and Practice of Digital Libraries, 20-23 September 2022, Padua, Italy
EMAIL: l20vasi@ionio.gr
ORCID: 0000-0001-9121-2436
©️ 2020 Copyright for this paper by its authors.
Use permitted under Creative Commons License Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0).
CEUR Workshop Proceedings (CEUR-WS.org)
2
The derived word xor-ef-ti-s ‘dancer’ for example consists of four morphemes, one stem (xor-) and three suffixes (-ef-, -ti-, -s).
For MG morphology, in particular, the major attempts of representation to date have been mostly
machine readable dictionaries (MRDs) [8]–[12] with little reference to morphological theory [9], [13]
and with their focus on inflection to a large extent. Other resources are more user-oriented,
incorporating lexical representations (lexica) but most of them are not freely accessible nor do they
follow an ontological model or a linguistic theory and additionally are available by different formats
and mediums.
On the other hand, more purposeful steps towards language ontological analysis within the SW have
been made in the last decade by the LLOD community, resulting in the creation of representational
models such as the Ontolex-lemon [14], [15], OLiA [16], GOLD [17] and LexInfo [18], [19]. However,
even though all of these models deal with morphological information, they are far from granular nor do
they focus on sub-lexical analysis or on derivational morphology. To fill this gap, the MMoOn3 model
has been formed lately, focusing exclusively on language morphology and taking a morpheme-based
approach that puts the morpheme concept at the center of analysis [20].
3. Theoretical approach
In terms of theory, the research is situated within the Lexicon and is sufficiently interpreted by
Strong Lexicalism [21]–[27], that regards morphology as a separate and autonomous field in relation to
syntax. Additionally, it adopts a binary relational pattern [28] of combinatorial morphology [24] as well
as the Lexical Morphology theory, which explains word formation as a layered hierarchical process
[29], [30]. The adoption of Lexicalism has been due to the morpheme prioritization as a steady
meaningful entity within words and in the Lexicon, a fact that also aligns with the complexity MG
creates lexical structures and its rich morphemic typology. The emphasis on the morpheme concept lies,
additionally, in the need to justify non-or-hard-transparent words due to their origin from Ancient Greek
(AG) (e.g. rίγnimi ‘to break’ > rίγ-ma4 ‘breach’). This intrinsic relation reveals the MG language
allomorphic nature, which also requires the management of words as strings of distinct morphemes.
4. Research questions
From the previous discussion the following research questions are due to be explored:
● the coverage of the available models and especially of the selected base-model on indicative
areas such as: morphemic typology and limits, diachronic analysis, interoperability between
morphological levels (inflection, derivation, composition), allomorphy, semantic and grammatical
meaning, morphemic relations, morpho-phonological processes, models of word formation, theory
representation etc.
● the consistency of the base-model as well as of the MG ontological instance to the former and
how this can be expressed in an ontology language e.g. OWL
● Usability issues via realistic use cases. How for example SPARQL can be used to form simple
or complex queries for postulating morphological axioms (e.g. the extent of productivity of specific
morphemes, which the most frequent derivational pattern is etc.)
● How would the ontology be populated so that it is overall tested and evaluated towards MG
lexical data? Can an automated or semi-automated way be leveraged according to related
implementations?
3
https://github.com/MMoOn-Project/MMoOn.
4
The phonological transcriptions are based on the International Phonetic Alphabet (IRA) (cf.
https://www.internationalphoneticassociation.org/content/ipa-chart).
5. Research methodology and techniques applied
The methodology of this research moves iteratively between morphological theory, primary lexical
data and the MG ontological instance and will prompt continuous tests for the extension, reforming and
functionality of the latter. The research will go through the following stages:
● Review of current ontological models for language morphology
● Review of MG contemporary morphological theory with arguable viewpoints in the field. It is
possible that this check-up will redefine morphological areas in view of the ontological
representation
● Development of the ontological model through: a) schematic or tabular depiction of MG
morphological peculiarities b) extension and development of the model according to coverage,
consistency and usability criteria with the assistance of an ontology editor (e.g. Protégé) c)
assessment of the ontological model with sufficient lexical data via query expansion (QE) or
inferencing
6. Stage of progress and preliminary results
In the research so far, the morpheme-based approach has been explored for MG morphology and
tested on the MMoOn model, which was selected as most appropriate to host the MG ontological
instance [31]. In Figure 1, we ontologically analyze the structural units participating in a MG common
concatenative pattern, i.e. -τη-ς (-ti-s) > -τ-ικ-ος (t-ik-os), applied to two different lexical bases:
καλλιεργη- (kallierji-) 〜 καλλιεργ- (kallierγ-)5 and χορευ- (xoref-) 〜 χορευ- (xorev-) of the derived
words καλλιεργητής ‘cultivator’ (kallierjitίs) > καλλιεργητικός ‘cultivating’ (kallierjitikόs) and χορευτής
‘dancer’ (xoreftίs) > χορευτικός ‘dancing’ (xoreftikόs). We do this by just using the classes
mmoon:Word and mmoon:Morph (and their subclasses) in binary formation structures and leveraging
the inverse consistsOf ↔ belongsTo object properties (OP) [31].
Figure 1: MMoOn ell_schema onto-lexical representation and analysis
5
The 〜 symbol denotes the allomorphic relation (given by the isAllomorphTo object property) between two morphemes.
As to the following steps in the research, other approaches to word formation are to be explored (e.g.
word-based) and contrasted to the morpheme-based.
7. Acknowledgements
This research was supported by the project: “Activities of the Laboratory on Digital Libraries and
Electronic Publishing of the Department of Archives, Library Science and Museology”.
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