SEMANTICALLY SIGNIFICANT PATTERNS IN DICTIONARY DEFINITIONS * 
Judith Markowitz 
Computer Science Department 
De Paul University, Chicago, IL 60604 
Thomas Ahlswede 
Marth~ Evens 
Computer Science Department 
Illinois Institute of Technology, Chicago, Ii 60616 
ABSTRACT 
Natural language processing systems 
need large lexicons containing explicit 
information about lexical-semantlc 
relationships, selection restrictions, 
and verb categories. Because the labor 
involved in constructing such lexicons by 
hand is overwhelming, we have been trying 
to construct lexical entries 
automatically from information available 
in the machine-readable version of 
Webst@r's ~@ve~h Col!eglate Dictionary. 
This work is rich in implicit 
information; the problem is to make it 
explicit. This paper describes methods 
for finding taxonomy and set-membership 
relationships, recognizing nouns that 
ordinarily represent human beings, and 
identifying active and stative verbs and 
adjectives. 
INTRODUCTION 
Large natural language processing 
systems need lexicons much larger than 
those available today with explicit 
information about lexlcal-semantic 
re%ationships, about usage, about forms, 
about morphology, about case frames and 
selection restrictions and other kinds of 
collocational information. Apresyan, 
Mel'cuk, and Zholkovsky studied the kind 
of explicit lexical information needed by 
non-native speakers of a language. Their 
Explanatory-Combinatory Dictionary (1970) 
explains how each word is used and how it 
combines with others in phrases and 
sentences. Their dream has now been 
realized in a full-scale dictionary of 
Russian (Mel'cuk and Zholkovsky, 1985) 
and in example entries for French 
(Mel'cuk et al., 1984). Computer 
programs need still more explicit and 
detailed information. We have discussed 
elsewhere the kind of lexical information 
needed in a question answering system 
(Evens and Smith, 1978) and by a system 
to generate medical case reports (Li et 
al., 1985). 
This research was supported by the 
National Science Foundation under IST-85- 
10069. 
A number of experiments have shown 
that relational thesauri can 
significantly improve the effectiveness 
of an information retrieval system (Fox, 
1980; Evens et al., 1985; Wang et al., 
1985). A relational thesaurus is used to 
add further terms to the lquery, terms 
that are related to the ~riglnal by 
lexlcal relations like synonymy, 
taxonomy, set-membership, or the part- 
whole relation, among others. The 
addition of these related terms enables 
the system to identify more relevant 
documents. The development of such 
relational thesauri would be 
comparatively simple if we had a large 
lexicon containing relational 
information. (A comparative study of 
lexical relations can be found in Evens 
et al., 1980). 
The work involved in developing a 
lexicon for a large subset of English is 
so overwhelming, that it seems 
appropriate to try to build a lexicon 
automatically by analyzing information in 
a machine-readable dictionary. A 
collegiate level dictionary contains an 
enormous amount of information about 
thousands of words in the natural 
language it describes. This information 
is presented in a form intended to be 
easily understood and used by a human 
being with at least some command of the 
language. Unfortunately, even when the 
dictionary has been transcribed into 
machine-readable form, the knowledge 
which a human user can acquire from the 
dictionary is not readily available to 
the computer. 
There have been a number of efforts to 
extract information from machine- 
readable dictionaries. Amsler (1980, 
1981, 1982) and Amsler and John White 
(1979) mapped out the taxonomic 
hierarchies of nouns and verbs in the 
Merriam-Webster Pocket Dictionary. 
Michiels (1981, 1983) analyzed the 
Longman Dictionary of C0ntemporary 
Englis h (LDOCE), taking advantage of the 
fact that that dictionary was designed to 
some extent to facilitate computer 
manipulation. Smith (1981) studied the 
112 
"defining formulae" - significant recurring phrases - in a selection of 
adjective definitions from We bster\[s 
Carolyn White (1983) has developed a 
program to create entries for Sager's 
Linguistic String Parser (1981) from WY. 
Chodorow and Byrd (1985) have extracted 
taxonomic hierarchies, associated wlth 
feature information, from LDOCE and W7. 
We have parsed W7 adjective 
definitions (Ahlswede, 1985b) using 
Sager's Linguistic String Parser (Sager, 
1981) in order to automatically identify 
lexical-semantic relations associated 
with defining formulae. We have also 
(Ahlswede and Evens, 1983) identified 
defining formulae in noun, verb and 
adverb definitions from W7. At present 
we are working on three interrelated 
projects: identification and analysis of 
lexical-semantic -elations in or out of 
WY; generation of computed definitions 
for words which are used or referred to 
but not defined in WY; and parsing of the 
entire dictionary (or as much of it as 
possible) to generate from it a large 
general lexical knowledge base. 
This paper represents a continuation 
of our work on defining formulae in 
dictionary definitions, in particular 
definitions from W7. The patterns we 
deal with are limited to recurring 
phrases, such as '"any of a" or "a quality 
or state of" (common in noun definitions) 
and "of or relating to" (common in 
adjective definitions). From such 
phrases, we gain information not only 
about the words being defined but also 
about the words used in the definitions 
and other words in the lexicon. 
Specifically, we can extract selectional 
information, co-occurrence relations, and 
lexical-semantic relations. These 
methods of extracting information from W7 
were designed for use in the lexicon 
builder described earlier by Ahlswede 
(1985a). 
The computational steps involved in 
this study were relatively simple. First 
W7 definitions were divided by part of 
speech into separate files for nouns, 
verbs, adjectives, and others. Then a 
separate Keyword In Context (KWIC) Index 
was made for each part of speech. 
Hypotheses were tried out initially on a 
subset of the dictionary containing only 
those words which appeared eight or more 
times in the Kucera and Francis corpus 
(1968) of a million words of running 
English text. Those that proved valid 
for this subset were then tested on the 
full dictionary. This work would have 
been impossible without the kind 
permission of the G. & C. Merriam 
Company to use the machine-readable 
version of W7 (Olney et al. 1967). 
NOUN TAXONOMY 
Noun definitions which begin with 
"Any" signal a taxonomic relationship 
between the noun being defined and a 
taxonomic superordinate which follows the 
word "Any." One subset of the formulae 
beginning with "Any" has the form: "Any"- 
NP, where the NP can be a noun, noun 
phrase, or a co-ordinated noun or 
adjective structure. 
la. alkyl any univalent aliphatic, 
aromatic-aliphatic, or 
alicyclic hydrocarbon radical. 
b. ammunition any material used in 
attack or defense. 
c. streptococcus any coccus in chains 
d. nectar any delicious drink 
e. discord any harsh or unpleasant 
sound 
f. milkwort any herb of a genus 
(Pol_ygala) of the family 
Polygalaceae, the milkwort 
family 
In these definitions the taxonomic 
superordinate of the noun being defined 
is the head noun of the NP immediately 
following "Any". The superordinate of 
"alkyl" is "radical," which is the head 
of the co-ordinated structure following 
"Any" whereas the superordinate of 
"ammunition" is the unmodified noun 
"material." Of the 97 examples of "Any"- 
NP only two failed to contain an overt 
taxonomic superordinate following "Any." 
2a. week any seven consecutive days 
b. couple any two persons paired 
together 
In each of these cases there is an 
implicit taxonomic superordinate "set." 
The second frequently occurring subset 
of noun definitions containing "Any" 
begins with the following pattern: "Any 
of"-NP. This pattern has two principal 
realizations depending upon what 
immediately follows "Any of." In one 
sub-pattern a quantifier, numeric 
expression, or "the" follows the initial 
"Any of" and begins an NP which contains 
the superordinate of the noun being 
defined. This pattern is similar to that 
described above for the "Any"-NP formula. 
113 
3a. doctor any of several brightly 
colored artificial flies 
b. allomorph any of two or more distinct 
crystalline forms of the same 
substance. 
c. elder any of various church 
officers 
The other sub-pattern expresses a 
biological taxonomic relationship and has 
the following definition structure: 
"Any of a/an" 
<optional> modifier 
taxonomic level 
"("scientific name")" 
"of" taxonomic superordinate 
either attributes or taxonomic 
subordinate 
The modifier is optional and modifies 
the taxonomic level of the noun being 
defined; the capitalized scientific name 
of the level follows in parenthesis; the 
taxonomic superordinate can be a noun or 
a complex NP and is the object of the 
second "of" in the formula; and the 
information following the superordinate 
is generally a co-ordinated structure, 
frequently co-ordinated NPs. Of the 901 
instances of the definition-initial "Any 
of a/an" sequence 853, or 95 per cent, 
were biological definitions. 
4a. ant any of a family (Formicidae) 
of colonial hymenopterous 
insects with complex social 
organization and various 
castes performing special 
duties. 
b. grass any of a large family 
(Gramineae) of 
monocotyledonous mostly 
herbaceous plants with jointed 
stems, slender sheathing 
leaves, and flowers borne in 
spikelets of bracts. 
c. acarld any of an order (Acarina) of 
arachnids including mites and 
ticks. 
d. cercis any of a small genus (Cerci s) 
of leguminous shrubs or low 
trees. 
e. nematode any of a class or phylum 
(Nematoda) of elongated 
cylindrical worms parasitic in 
animals or plants or 
free-living in soil or water. 
f. archaeornis any of a genus 
(Archaeornis) of upper 
Jurassic toothed birds. 
The only sequences which break from 
the pattern described above are non- 
biological definitions, which do not have 
parenthetical information following the 
head noun of the NP following "Any of 
a/an" and biological definitions where 
that head noun is "breed." 
5a. globulin any of a class of simple 
proteins (as myosin) insoluble 
in pure water but soluble in 
dilute salt solutions that 
occur widely in plant and 
animal tissues. 
b. rottweiler any of a breed of tall 
vigorous black short-haired 
cattle dogs. 
c. poland china any of an American 
breed of large white-marked 
black swine of the lard type. 
The definition for "globulin" 
illustrates that even when a non- 
biological definition has a parenthesis, 
that parenthetical information does not 
immediately follow the NP following "Any 
of a/an." The other definitions in (5) 
are instances of "breed" following "Any 
of a/an." In general, when a definition 
begins with "Any of a/an" it is almost 
certainly a biological definition and 
that certainty is increased if the "Any 
of a/an noun" is immediately followed by 
parenthesis unless the noun of the 
pattern is "breed." 
THE MEMBER-SET RELATION 
Another defining formula with an 
interesting resemblance to taxonomy also 
occurs in noun definitions. The pattern 
"A member of"-NP is similar to the basic 
organization of the "Any" definitions in 
that the immediate superordinate of the 
noun being defined is the object of the 
preposition "of" except in this pattern 
the relationship is, of course, member- 
set. 
6a. hand a member of a ship's crew. 
b. earl a member of the third grade 
of the British peerage ranking 
below a marquess and above a 
viscount. 
c. Frank a member of a West Germanic 
people entering the Roman 
provinces in A.D. 253, 
occupying the Netherlands and 
most of Gaul, and establishing 
themselves along the Rhine. 
d. republican a member of a political 
114 
party advocating republicanism 
e. Fox a member of an Indian people 
formerly living in Wisconsin. 
f. Episcopalian a member of an episcopal 
church (as the Protestant 
Episcopal Church). 
g. friar a member of a mendicant order 
What we have here is a generic term 
for any member of the speci\[led set. It 
Is perhaps best thought of as similar to 
the part-whole relation -- a hand is part 
of a crew, a Frank is part of a tribe, an 
earl is (somewhat inelegantly) part of a 
peerage. 
In our data the nouns being defined 
with this formula are invariably human. 
Of the 581 definitions which begin with 
"A member of" only nine define non-human 
nouns and two of those are 
anthropomorphic. 
7a. Jotunn a member of a race of giants 
in Norse mythology 
b. Houyhnhnm a member of a race of 
horses endowed with reason in 
Swift's qu~li~!~ ~Y~. 
Why is it important to mark nouns in a 
lexicon as explicitly human? Many verbs 
can take only human subjects or objects. 
Also, the choice between the relative 
pronouns Vb9 and which depends on whether 
the referent is human or not. 
The member-set relation needs to be 
distinguished from another relation that 
classifies a specific individual as in 
8a. Circe sorceress who changed 
Odysseus' men into swine. 
GENERIC AGENTS 
Generic agents are the typical fillers 
of the agent argument sot for a given 
verb. They are particularly valuable in 
understanding intersentential references 
or generating them. One very surprising 
source of definitions for human nouns is 
the formula "One that." Of the 1419 
examples of this pattern 694, or 49 per 
cent were verifiably human. That is, it 
was possible to determine from the 
definition itself or from associated 
definitions, such as a related verb, that 
the noun being defined was +human. This 
estimate is, therefore, conservative. It 
was also determined that a large portion 
of these definitions (30 per cent) were 
of occupations. 
9a. goldbeater one that beats gold into 
gold leaf 
b. pollster one that conducts a poll or 
compiles data obtained by a 
poll. 
c. schoolmaster one that disciplines 
or directs. 
d. hatter one that makes, sells, or 
cleans and repairs hats. 
e. assassin one that murders either 
for hire or for fanatical 
motives. 
f. taxpayer one that pays or is 
liable to pay a tax 
g. teletyplst one that operates a 
teletypewriter. 
WHAT THE PARENTHESES TELL US 
The formula "one (..)" offers very 
different information. (This formula 
typically occurs somewhere in the middle 
of a definition, not at the beginning.) 
If the first word of the parenthetical 
information is not "as", a definition 
which begins with this pattern is a 
biological definition. The parenthetical 
material is the scientific name of the 
noun being defined. These definitions 
are sub-definitions and almost invariably 
follow "esp: ". 
lOa. pimpernel any of a genus (Anagallis) 
of herbs of the primrose 
family; e~P: one (A. aryensis) 
whose scarlet, white, or 
purplish flowers close at the 
approach of rainy or cloudy 
weather. 
b. whelk any of numerous large marine 
snails (as of the genus 
Buccinum); esp: one 
(B~ undatum) much used as 
food in Europe. 
c. turnip either of two biennial herbs 
of the mustard family with 
thick roots eaten as a 
vegetable or fed to stock, one 
(Brassic@ rapa) with hairy 
leaves and usu. flattened 
roots. 
d. capuchin any of a genus (~ebus) 
of So. American monkeys; 
esp one (C. capuc!nas) 
with the hair on its crown 
resembling a monk's cowl. 
e. croton any of a genus (Crot0n) of 
115 
herbs and shrubs of the spurge 
famil, one (C. @lute~ia) of 
the Bahamas yielding 
cascarilla bark. 
f. bully tree any of several tropical 
American trees of the 
Sapodillo family; es~ one 
(Manilkara bid entata) that 
yields balata gum and heavy 
red timber. 
SUFFIX DEFINITIONS 
The defining pattern "One...(... 
specific /such...)" is an interesting 
sequence which is only used to define 
suffixes. The words "specific" and 
"such" signal this while at the same time 
indicating what semantic information 
should be taken from the stem to which 
the suffix is affixed. 
11a. -er one that is a suitable object 
of (a specified action). 
b. -ate one acted upon (in a specified 
way). 
c. -morph one having (such) a form. 
d. -path one suffering from (such) an 
ailment. 
e. -ant one that performs (a specified 
action). 
f. -grapher one that writes about 
(specified) material or in a 
(specified) way. 
Examples associated with some of the 
definitions in (10) are "isomorph," 
"psychopath," and "violinist." We are in 
the process of analyzing all instances of 
parenthetical "specified" and "such" to 
determine whether the defining formula 
exemplified by (10) is a general approach 
to the definition of affixes. Clearly, 
the use of parentheses is very 
significant, signalling an important 
semantic distinction. 
WHAT NOUN DEFINITIONS TELL US ABOUT VERBS 
Noun defining patterns can provide 
important information about specific 
verbs. Not surprisingly, one of these is 
the pattern "Act of Ving" which is an 
indicator of action verbs. 
Action verbs differ from statlve verbs 
in a number of important ways. Action 
verbs llke bite and Re rsuade can appear 
in imperative sentences, while statlve 
verbs like own and resemble cannot: 
Bite that man! 
Persuade him to go! 
*Own the house! 
*Resemble your father! 
Action verbs take the progressive aspect; 
stative verbs do not: 
She is biting the man. 
She is persuading him to go. 
*She is owning the house. 
*She is resembling your father. 
Action verbs can appear in a number of 
embedded sentences where statives cannot 
be used. 
I told her to bite the man. 
*I told her to own the house. 
In definitions the action verb appears 
as the gerundive object of the 
preposition "of" or as the present-tense 
verb of the subordinate clause. 
12a. plumbing the act of using a plumb. 
b. forgiveness the act of forgiving. 
c. soliloquy the act of talking to 
oneself. 
d. projection the act of throwing or 
shooting forward. 
e. refund the act of refunding 
f. protrusion the act of protruding. 
g. investiture the act of ratifying 
or establishing in office. 
The examples in (11) indicate that the 
related verb is not always 
morphologically related. This pattern 
could, therefore, be used as a means of 
accessing semantically related verbs and 
nouns or as a tool for the construction 
of a semantic network. 
"The act of Ving" definitions have a 
subpattern which consists of "The act of 
Ving or the state of being <adj>." There 
are not many examples of this subpattern, 
but in all but one instance the noun 
being defined, the verb and the adjective 
are morphologically related. 
13a. adornment the act of adorning or the 
state of being adorned. 
b. popularization the act of 
popularizing or the state of 
being popularized 
c. nourishment the act of nourishing or 
the state of being nourished. 
116 
d. intrusion the act of intruding or the 
state of being intruded. 
e. embodiment the act of embodying or 
the state of being embodied. 
In contrast, our data do not support 
the use of the corresponding formula "The 
state of being"-past part. for 
identifying stative verbs, Many 
instances of this pattern appear to be 
passives or stative use of normally non- 
stative verbs. This position is 
supported by the presence of a fair 
number of definitions which conjoin the 
two formulae. 
14a. displacement the act or process 
of displacing: the state of 
being displaced. 
b. examination the act or process of 
examining: the state of being 
examined. 
c. expansion the act or process of 
expanding. The quality or 
state of being expanded. 
It is likely that the formula "The 
quality or state of being"-past part. is 
a stative verb indicator when it does not 
co-occur with "Act of" definitions. 
Support comes from the frequency with 
which that pattern alternates adjectives, 
which are normally stative, with the past 
participle. 
SELECTIONAL INFORMATION 
FOR VERB DEFINITIONS 
Although the structure of verb 
definitions is much more limited than 
that of noun definitions, elements of 
verb definitions do provide interesting 
insights into collocatlonal information. 
One striking example of this is the use 
of parenthetical information which flags 
typical instantiations of case arguments 
for the verb being defined. The most 
consistent of these patterns is "To"-V- 
(<"as">NP) where the NP is the typical 
object of the verb being defined. 
15a. mount to put or have (as artillery) 
in position. 
b. lay to bring forth and deposit (an egg). 
c. develop to subject (exposed 
phetographic material) to a 
usu. chemical treatment... 
We are in the process of determining 
how consistent the parenthetical "as" is 
in signalling typical case relations. 
SELECTIONAL INFORMATION FOR ADJECTIVES 
Adjective definitions differ from 
those of nouns and verbs in that while 
nouns are virtually always defined in 
terms of other nouns and verbs in terms 
of other verbs, only about 10 percent of 
adjectives are defined in terms of other 
adjectives -- the rest are related to 
nouns or sometimes to verbs. 
Furthermore, the semantic information in 
an adjective definition refers more to 
the noun (or type of noun) modified by 
the adjective than it does to the 
adjective itself. This is because an 
adjective, together with the noun it 
modifies, defines a taxonomic 
relationship -- or, to put it another 
way, denotes a feature of the thing 
defined in the adjective+noun phrase. 
For instance, we can say either that the 
phrase "big dog" denotes a particular 
kind of (the more general term) "dog"; or 
that it denotes a dog with the additional 
feature of "bigness". 
A useful piece of information we would 
like to get from adjective definitions is 
selectional information -- what sort of 
noun the adjective can meaningfully 
modify. Selectional restrictions are 
harder to find and are largely negative - 
- for instance, the formula "containing" 
defines adjectives that do not (in the 
sense so defined) modify animate nouns. 
10a. basic containing relatively little 
silica. 
b. normal containing neither basic 
hydroxyl nor acid hydrogen. 
The same is true of some other 
moderately common formulae, such as 
"consisting of", "extending" and 
"causing". We hope that further analysis 
will allow us to find more indications of 
selectional characteristics of 
adjectives. 
RECOGNIZING ACTION VS. STATIVE ADJECTIVES 
One property belonging more to 
adjectives themselves than to their 
associated nouns is an active-stative 
distinction similar to that found in 
verbs. The test for an "active" 
adjective is that one may use it in a 
statement of the form "they are being --- 
-" or in the command "be .... \]" e.g. "be 
aggressive!" or "be good!", but not *"be 
tall!" or *"be ballistic!" As these 
examples indicate, most adjectives that 
can be used actively can also be used 
117 
statively -- aggressiveness or goodness 
may be thought of as a state rather than 
as an action -- but not the other way 
around. 
Contrary to our expectations, the 
active-stative parameter of adjectives is 
much easier to identify in definitions 
than is selectlonal information. Some of 
the defining formulae discussed in Smith 
(1981) and Ahlswede (1985b) seem to be 
limited to statlve adjectives. "Of or 
relating to", one of the most common, is 
one of these: 
fla. ballistic of or relating to 
ballistics or to a body in 
motion according to the laws 
of ballistics. 
b. literary of or relating to books. 
Although many adjectives defined with 
"of or relating to" can be used actively 
in other senses, they are strictly 
stative in the senses where this formula 
is used: 
12a. civil of or relating to citizens 
<~ liberties>. 
b. peaceful of or relating to a state 
or time of peace. 
The common formula "being ...", on the 
other hand, defines adjectives which at 
least lean toward the action end of the 
spectrum: 
13a. natural being in accordance with 
or determined by nature. 
b. cursed being under or deserving a 
curse. 
Even such a normally stative adjective as 
"liquid" is relatively active in one of 
its senses: 
14a. liquid being musical and free of 
harshness in sound. 
By no means all formulae give 
indications of the stative-active 
qualities of an adjective. A large 
family of formulae ("having", 
"characterized by", "marked by", etc.) 
denoting attribution, are completely 
neutral with respect to this parameter. 
SUMMARY 
W7 contains a wealth of implicit 
information. We have presented methods 
for making some of this information 
explicit by focussing on specific 
formulae found in noun, verb, and 
adjective definitions. Most of these 
formulae appear at the start of 
definitions, but we have also 
demonstrated that important information 
can be extracted from syntactic and 
graphemic elements, such as 
parentheticals. The information we have 
extracted involves lexical relationships 
such as taxonomy and set membership, 
selectional restrictions, and special 
subcategories of nouns, verbs, and 
adjectives. This information is used by 
an automatic lexicon builder to create 
lexical entries automatically from W7 
definitions. 
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