Indexing concepts and/or named entities

Pino Buizza11th International ISKO conference

Roma, 23-26.2.2010

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

2Roma, 23.2.2010

Indexing concepts or named entities Morphologic aspects Concept and named entity Named entity & proper name Meaning of proper names Semantic linguistics Indexing languages Beyond indexing languages

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

3Roma, 23.2.2010

Morphologic aspects

Principles underlying subject heading languages (SHLs) “each concept or named entity ... be represented by one

authorized heading” “names of persons, places, families, corporate bodies

and works ... according to the rules used for author and title entries”

But: names incorporated in a phrase? Romantic drama – Influence by Shakespeare, William Romantic drama – Influence by William Shakespeare

But: entities not covered by cataloguing rules Alexander the Great Venus de Milo

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

4Roma, 23.2.2010

Concept and named entity

Concept: “a unit of thought. Concepts exist in the mind as abstract entities independent of terms used to express them” (ISO-CD 25963)

Named entity:unique entities identified by a proper name

Which are the differences?

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

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Concept and unique entity

Idea plane a class, with shared characteristics an individual in the class, with its own characteristics

Verbal plane – natural language common nouns determiners, definite descriptions, proper names

Verbal plane – controlled vocabulary terms from subject heading list or thesaurus

a priori relationships between concepts uniform headings

equivalence relationship between different forms

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

6Roma, 23.2.2010

Named entity & proper name

In association with a common noun Hurricane Charlie Earthquake – Haiti – 2010, Jan. 12

not unique entities considered a single entity Automobile Citroên 2cv Leontopodium Alpinum (or Edelweiss) Christmas

types of material or of uncountable products Chianti wine

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

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Proper names

Philosophy of language meaninglessness

only a reference, denotation, extension=1 from an initial baptismal act

meaningfullness Sinn (sense) shortened description categorical presupposition grammatical meaning

intension/extension is only one aspect

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

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Semantic linguistics

Grammatical meaning Use meaning Lemma/name Categorial meaning

level of applicationassigned / derived meaning...

...

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

9Roma, 23.2.2010

Semantic linguistics

In common nouns the meaning determines the denotatum

In proper names the meaning helps to retrieve an already given denotatum

Proper names no asserted lexical meaning presuppositional and asserted meaning

categorical meaning – linguistic convention associative meaning – language use emotive meaning grammatical meaning

a mental referent

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

10Roma, 23.2.2010

Proper name, a definition

“A proper name is a noun that denotes a unique entity at the level of established linguistic convention to make it psychosocially salient within a given basic level category [pragmatic].

The meaning of a name, if any, does not (or not any longer) determine its denotation [semantic]” ...

(Willy Van Langendonck, Theory and typology of proper names)

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

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Definition / description

Concept Unique entity related concepts • independent descriptions a net of meaning • infinite description abstraction • instance instantiable • not instantiable divisible • not divisible ... ...A proper name for a unique entity lacks the features

of a common noun or noun phrase for a concept

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

12Roma, 23.2.2010

Indexing languages

Concepts, connected with a priori relationships thesaurus without Named Entities

Named entities, isolatedwithout semantic relationshipswith instance relationship(s)exposed to different assertions

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

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Instance relationship

Categorical relationship, independent from circumstances and documentsMen / women?Nationality? Profession?Architects, Painters, Sculptors ...?

Polyhierarchy?Bruni, Carla BTI ModelsBruni, Carla BTI First ladies

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

14Roma, 23.2.2010

Instance as syntactical relationship

The most specific concept instantianted plus Named Entity,

(term plus proper name) Architects: Bernini, Gian Lorenzo Sculptors: Bernini, Gian Lorenzo Actors: Regan, Ronald USA Presidents: Regan, Ronald

(GRIS, Guida all’indicizzazione per soggetto)

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

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Classification

No individual is a class (logically exclusive) exception, due to literary warrant, not a logical

reason: William Shakespeare in DDC Every individual is in a class, or, in more than

one class disciplinary dispersion, like any concept interdisciplinary number for typical categories

In a class with a proper number UDC: class number + proper name

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

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Bottom term / class of one

Proper names of NE are bottom termsdivided only by their parts/propertiesqualified by syntactic relationships with other

concepts or NE Named entities are classes of one

no class is a-tomic, sub-classes with other facets

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

17Roma, 23.2.2010

Beyond indexing languages

Proper name in catalogue: mere denotation, with referent in the real world, meaningless

Proper name in indexing: categorical meaning, with a mental referent

Proper name in full text searching (NER) = “propial lemma” metaphora, metonymy, antonomasia, autonymy ... different referents

Pino Buizza. Indexing concepts and/or named entities

18Roma, 23.2.2010

Thank you !