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wn - command line interface to WordNet lexical database
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Bugs
Please report bugs to wordnet@princeton.edu.
WordNet 3.0 Dec 2006 WN(1WN)
Description
wn() provides a command line interface to the WordNet database, allowing synsets and relations to be
displayed as formatted text. For each word, different searches are provided, based on syntactic category
and pointer types. Although only base forms of words are usually stored in WordNet, users may search for
inflected forms. A morphological process is applied to the search string to generate a form that is
present in WordNet.
The command line interface is often useful when writing scripts to extract information from the WordNet
database. Post-processing of the output with various scripting tools can reformat the results as
desired.
Environment Variables (Unix)
WNHOME Base directory for WordNet. Default is /usr/local/WordNet-3.0.
WNSEARCHDIR Directory in which the WordNet database has been installed. Default is WNHOME/dict.
Exit Status
wn() normally exits with the number of senses displayed. If searchword is not found in WordNet, it exits
with 0.
If the WordNet database cannot be opened, an error messages is displayed and wn() exits with -1.
Files
index.pos database index files
data.pos database data files
*.vrb files of sentences illustrating the use of verbs
pos.exc morphology exception lists
Name
wn - command line interface to WordNet lexical database
Options
-h Print help text before search results.
-g Display textual glosses associated with synsets.
-a Display lexicographer file information.
-o Display synset offset of each synset.
-s Display each word's sense numbers in synsets.
-l Display the WordNet copyright notice, version number, and license.
-n# Perform search on sense number # only.
-over Display overview of all senses of searchstr in all syntactic categories.
SearchOptions
Note that the last letter of search_option generally denotes the part of speech that the search applies
to: n for nouns, v for verbs, a for adjectives, and r for adverbs. Multiple searches may be done for
searchstr with a single command by specifying all the appropriate search options.
-syns(n | v | a | r)
Display synonyms and immediate hypernyms of synsets containing searchstr. Synsets are
ordered by estimated frequency of use. For adjectives, if searchstr is in a head synset,
the cluster's satellite synsets are displayed in place of hypernyms. If searchstr is in a
satellite synset, its head synset is also displayed.
-simsv Display verb synonyms and immediate hypernyms of synsets containing searchstr. Synsets
are grouped by similarity of meaning.
-ants(n | v | a | r)
Display synsets containing antonyms of searchstr. For adjectives, if searchstr is in a
head synset, searchstr has a direct antonym. The head synset for the direct antonym is
displayed along with the direct antonym's satellite synsets. If searchstr is in a
satellite synset, searchstr has an indirect antonym via the head synset, which is
displayed.
-faml(n | v | a | r)
Display familiarity and polysemy information for searchstr.
-hype(n | v) Recursively display hypernym (superordinate) tree for searchstr (searchstrISAKINDOF_____ relation).
-hypo(n | v) Display immediate hyponyms (subordinates) for searchstr (_____ISAKINDOFsearchstr
relation).
-tree(n | v) Display hyponym (subordinate) tree for searchstr. This is a recursive search that finds
the hyponyms of each hyponym.
-coor(n | v) Display the coordinates (sisters) of searchstr. This search prints the immediate hypernym
for each synset that contains searchstr and the hypernym's immediate hyponyms.
-deri(n | v) Display derivational morphology links between noun and verb forms.
-domn(n | v | a | r)
Display domain that searchstr has been classified in.
-domt(n | v | a | r)
Display all terms classified as members of the searchstr's domain.
-subsn Display substance meronyms of searchstr (HASSUBSTANCE relation).
-partn Display part meronyms of searchstr (HASPART relation).
-membn Display member meronyms of searchstr (HASMEMBER relation).
-meron Display all meronyms of searchstr (HASPART,HASMEMBER,HASSUBSTANCE relations).
-hmern Display meronyms for searchstr tree. This is a recursive search that prints all the
meronyms of searchstr and all of its hypernyms.
-sprtn Display partof holonyms of searchstr (PARTOF relation).
-smemn Display memberof holonyms of searchstr (MEMBEROF relation).
-ssubn Display substanceof holonyms of searchstr (SUBSTANCEOF relation).
-holon Display all holonyms of searchstr (PARTOF,MEMBEROF,SUBSTANCEOF relations).
-hholn Display holonyms for searchstr tree. This is a recursive search that prints all the
holonyms of searchstr and all of each holonym's holonyms.
-entav Display entailment relations of searchstr.
-framv Display applicable verb sentence frames for searchstr.
-causv Display causeto relations of searchstr.
-pert(a | r) Display pertainyms of searchstr.
-attr(n | a) Display adjective values for noun attribute, or noun attributes of adjective values.
-grep(n | v | a | r)
List compound words containing searchstr as a substring.
Registry (Windows)
HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SOFTWARE\WordNet\3.0\WNHome
Base directory for WordNet. Default is C:\ProgramFiles\WordNet\3.0.
Search Results
The results of a search are written to the standard output. For each search, the output consists a one
line description of the search, followed by the search results.
All searches other than -over list all senses matching the search results in the following general
format. Items enclosed in italicized square brackets ([...]) may not be present.
One line listing the number of senses matching the search request.
Each sense matching the search requested displayed as follows:
Sensen[{synset_offset}][<lex_filename>]word1[#sense_number][,word2...]
Where n is the sense number of the search word, synset_offset is the byte offset of the synset in
the data.pos file corresponding to the syntactic category, lex_filename is the name of the
lexicographer file that the synset comes from, word1 is the first word in the synset (note that
this is not necessarily the search word) and sense_number is the WordNet sense number assigned to
the preceding word. synset_offset,lex_filename, and sense_number are generated when the -o,-a,
and -s options, respectively, are specified.
The synsets matching the search requested are printed below each sense's synset output described
above. Each line of output is preceded by a marker (usually =>), then a synset, formatted as
described above. If a search traverses more one level of the tree, then successive lines are
indented by spaces corresponding to its level in the hierarchy. When the -g option is specified,
synset glosses are displayed in parentheses at the end of each synset. Each synset is printed on
one line.
Senses are generally ordered from most to least frequently used, with the most common sense
numbered 1. Frequency of use is determined by the number of times a sense is tagged in the
various semantic concordance texts. Senses that are not semantically tagged follow the ordered
senses. Note that this ordering is only an estimate based on usage in a small corpus.
Verb senses can be grouped by similarity of meaning, rather than ordered by frequency of use. The
-simsv search prints all senses that are close in meaning together, with a line of dashes
indicating the end of a group. See wngroups(7WN) for a discussion of how senses are grouped.
The -over search displays an overview of all the senses of the search word in all syntactic
categories. The results of this search are similar to the -syns search, however no additional
(ex. hypernym) synsets are displayed, and synset glosses are always printed. The senses are
grouped by syntactic category, and each synset is annotated as described above with synset_offset,
lex_filename, and sense_number as dictated by the -o,-a, and -s options. The overview search
also indicates how many of the senses in each syntactic category are represented in the tagged
texts. This is a way for the user to determine whether a sense's sense number is based on
semantic tagging data, or was arbitrarily assigned. For each sense that has appeared in such
texts, the number of semantic tags to that sense are indicated in parentheses after the sense
number.
If a search cannot be performed on some senses of searchstr, the search results are headed by a
string of the form:
X of Y senses of searchstr
The output of the -deri search shows word forms that are morphologically related to searchstr.
Each word form pointed to from searchstr is displayed, preceded by RELATEDTO-> and the syntactic
category of the link, followed, on the next line, by its synset. Printed after the word form is
#n where n indicates the WordNet sense number of the term pointed to.
The -domn and -domt searches show the domain that a synset has been classified in and, conversely,
all of the terms that have been assigned to a specific domain. A domain is either a TOPIC,REGION
or USAGE, as reflected in the specific pointer character stored in the database, and displayed in
the output. A -domn search on a term shows the domain, if any, that each synset containing
searchstr has been classified in. The output display shows the domain type (TOPIC,REGION or
USAGE), followed by the syntactic category of the domain synset and the terms in the synset. Each
term is followed by #n where n indicates the WordNet sense number of the term. The converse
search, -domt, shows all of the synsets that have been placed into the domain searchstr, with
analogous markers.
When -framv is specified, sample illustrative sentences and generic sentence frames are displayed.
If a sample sentence is found, the base form of search is substituted into the sentence, and it is
printed below the synset, preceded with the EX: marker. When no sample sentences are found, the
generic sentence frames are displayed. Sentence frames that are acceptable for all words in a
synset are preceded by the marker *>. If a frame is acceptable for the search word only, it is
preceded by the marker =>.
Search results for adjectives are slightly different from those for other parts of speech. When
an adjective is printed, its direct antonym, if it has one, is also printed in parentheses. When
searchstr is in a head synset, all of the head synset's satellites are also displayed. The
position of an adjective in relation to the noun may be restricted to the prenominal, postnominal
or predicative position. Where present, these restrictions are noted in parentheses.
When an adjective is a participle of a verb, the output indicates the verb and displays its
synset.
When an adverb is derived from an adjective, the specific adjectival sense on which it is based is
indicated.
The morphological transformations performed by the search code may result in more than one word to
search for. WordNet automatically performs the requested search on all of the strings and returns
the results grouped by word. For example, the verb saw is both the present tense of saw and the
past tense of see. When passed searchstrsaw, WordNet performs the desired search first on saw
and next on see, returning the list of saw senses and search results, followed by those for see.
See Also
wnintro(1WN), wnb(1WN), wnintro(3WN), lexnames(5WN), senseidx(5WN) wndb(5WN), wninput(5WN), morphy(7WN), wngloss(7WN), wngroups(7WN).
Synopsis
wn [ searchstr ] [ -h] [ -g ] [ -a ] [ -l ] [ -o ] [ -s ] [ -n# ] [ search_option... ]
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