Basics of Ontology modeling in FunGramKB. The case of burn*

Abstract

The aim of the present study is two-fold. Firstly, we discuss the advantages of a conceptual approach to meaning representation within the framework of a multipurpose Natural Language Processing (NLP) system known as FunGramKB (Periñán and Arcas, 2004, 2005, 2006; Periñán and Mairal, 2009ab, 2010, to name a few). FunGramKB solves some of the problems encountered in relational databases in that it provides morphosyntactic and pragmatic information about lexical units, it avoids language dependency by working with concepts and not words, and it minimizes redundancy by cognitive clustering. Secondly, we offer an outline of the ontological modeling of concepts related to the change-of-state verb burn. FunGramKB is an invaluable knowledge base that can be later used for the development of numerous NLP applications, such as intelligent question-answer systems or cross-linguistic information retrieval applications.