Constructing A Yami Language Lexicon Database from Yami Archiving Projects Meng-Chien Yang(Providence University, Taiwan) D. Victoria Rau(National Chung Cheng University, Taiwan)

Outline Motivation Construction of Yami Ontology Model for Analyzing Yami Semantics Framework of Yami Lexicon Database Framework Conclusion

Tao （ Yami ） Language A Taiwan’s Aboriginal Tribes in Orchid Island （ Lanyu ） Yami Language is classified as Ivatan or Bashiic Population about 3000 Yami Language is rich with description of life and nature Yami language is used sparsely(Rau, 1995) Yami language eventually dies out in the near future

Orchid Island (Lan-yu): 60 kilometers southeast of Taiwan

Previous Projects Yami language documentation –Field documentation –Yami learning dictionary –Yami cultural corpus Yami language learning and revitalization –Yami elearning material and web sites –

《 Yami learning dictionary 》 6

《 Yami Cultural Corpus 》 7

Next Endangered Language research Lexical research: finding the concept, relation, axioms. Language semantics mapping –Yami language  Chinese –Yami language   English Building Yami ontologies Building online Yami Semantics and online lexicon

Problems of Implementation Scary of Language Resources Scary of Language Annotation Not enough language documentation Idea: Using the ontology to integrated endangered languages with a major language, i.e. Chinese

Creating the Yami ontology Step 1: Determine the domain and scope of the ontology Step 2: Consider reusing existing ontologies Step 3: Enumerate important terms in the ontology Step 4: Define classes and the class hierarchy Steps 5-6: Define the properties of classes and slots and define the facets of the slots Step 7: Create instances (individuals).

Concept 、 Object 、 Class –set of words with the common concepts 。 [Examples ： Person → adult 、 juvenile] Attribute 、 Property 、 Slot 、 Role –Words or Phrases features or characteristics 。 [Examples ： rarakeh : （ hasReduplicate ） and （ hasConceptReverse ） ] Yami Ontology(1/1)

Yami Ontology(1/2) Relations –relations between words 。 [ 例： rarakeh hasReduplicate ra 或 rarakeh “ 老人 ” hasConcept Reverse to kanakan “ 孩 童 ”] Instance –representing the upper concept 。 [ 例： adult - rarakeh “ 老人 ” juvenile - kanakan “ 孩童 ”]

The Yami ontologies Analysis Framework

Yami Upper-Level Semantics Collecting the Yami Metaphors from Field works Metaphors are evaluated by anthropologist and are given weighted The weighted metaphors are transformed by linguist to the semantics In the final, the metaphors are tranformed into the schema following the SUMO standard

Functions of Yami Ontology Constructor and Analyzer Ontologies Integrations and Transformation –Yami Ontology with semantics from other lexicon databases –Yami Ontology with metaphors from field studies Links the ontologies with different Yami semantics Toward ontology evolution

Ontology Evolution Create a new ontology by combining the old ontologies created by previous Yami Corpus and the new ontologies created by the upper-level semantics Modules for the automatically ontologies evolution system includes: nodes transformation, structural difference, conceptual relation management

Building Yami Lexical Database

Function for Yami Semantic mapping system Ontology based mapping Using words vector mapping Finding the word semantic similarities Finding the phrases semantic similarities Finding the synsets between the endangered languages and Chinese-English

Ontology :relations

Ontology Framework evaluation Fish is eaten by the old people (rarakeh) rarakeh is OLD Male in Yami language The semantics would be revised following the findings The epxansion of the Yami fish ontology can linked to the ontology of rarakeh

Conclusion Framework for Constructing Yami Lexicon database Process of How to constructing Yami Ontologies Future Plan: Implementation, Integrating Yami language with Chinese

demonstration

ayoy, thank you