Specification of Requirements/Properties-and-Relations-of-Entries

From Ontology-Lexica Community Group

Reviewed classification of lexical, terminological and translation variants (01/10/2014) Lupe and Elena

[Inspired by the paper: Elena Montiel-Ponsoda, John Mccrae, Guadalupe Aguado-De-Cea and Jorge Gracia. Multilingual Variation in the context of Linked Data. In Proceedings of the Terminology and Artificial Intelligence conference (TIA 2013), in press]


  • Lexical variants: lexical variants are defined as those variants that are semantically coincident but formally different, and which are mainly motivated by grammatical requirements, style (Wortklang), and linguistic economy (helping to avoid excessive denominative repetition and improving textual coherence)
  1. Orthographic variants
    1. Diatopic variants (e.g., local-ize vs. localise)
    2. Diachronic variants (e.g., different scripts for languages such as Azeri)
    3. Ideographic variants (e.g., in Japanese both “寿司” and “鮨” are used for sushi)
  2. Affixal variants
    1. Derivational variants (e.g., adjective -> adverb variation: quick vs. quickly)
    2. Inflexional variants (e.g., adjective agreement: rojo, roja, rojos, rojas)
  3. Morphosyntactic variants
    1. Compounds (e.g., ecological tourism vs. eco-tourism)
    2. Abbreviations (including ac-ronyms, among others. E.g., peer to peer and p2p; WYSWYG, FAO, UNO, etc.)
    3. Rephrasing variants (e.g., immigration law vs. law for regulating and controlling immigration)


  • Terminological variants: variants that are not only formally, but also semantically different, and this difference is intentionally caused. In this type of terminological variants, the denomination or term itself is a clear indicator of the reasons or causes for variation. These reasons can be the origins of the authors, in the case of diatopic variants; the different communicative registers, in the case of diaphasic variants (also termed functional variants); the stylistic or expressive needs of the authors, as for the so-called diastratic variants; and the different conceptualizations, approaches or perspectives underlying them, in what we have termed dimensional variants.

This variation can be within one language or across languages.

  1. Diatopic (dialectal or geographical variants) (e.g., gasoline vs. petrol)
  2. Diaphasic (register) (e.g., headache and cephalalgia; swine flu and pig flu and H1N1 and Mexican pandemic flu)
  3. Diachronic (or chronological variants) (e.g., tuberculosis and phthisis)
  4. Diastratic (discursive or stylistic vari-ants) (e.g., man vs. bloke)
  5. Dimensional variants: the terms point to the same concept but highlight a different property or dimension of the concept (e.g., biosanitary waste vs. hospital waste; Novel Coronavirus vs. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus; obsolete technology vs. dangerous technology)


  • Translation variants (to maintain coherence with the classificacion of variants) or (simply) translations: variants thar are mainly caused by different conceptualization and/or motivations, usually in more than one language. We could say that these variants are semantically and formally different, as in the case of terminological variants, but they usually point to concepts which are almost equivalent or culturally equivalent.
  1. Cultural equivalent translations: the two variants/translations describe entities that are pragmatically equivalent, since they describe similar situations in different cultures and languages (e.g., Prime Minister in English vs. Presidente del Gobierno in Spanish)
  1. Direct equivalent translation: the two variants describe entities that exist in both cultures and languages (e.g., payment method in English vs. medio de pago in Spanish).

Translation variants can be further considered as terminological variants. For example, surrogate mother and vientre de alquiler/madre de alquiler can be direct equivalent translations and also dimensional terminological variants. The same happens with online banking/e-banking/internet banking/virtual banking and banca electrónica/banca online.


Updated classification of lexical, terminological and semantic variants (13/09/2013)

[From Elena Montiel-Ponsoda, John Mccrae, Guadalupe Aguado-De-Cea and Jorge Gracia. Multilingual Variation in the context of Linked Data. In Proceedings of the Terminology and Artificial Intelligence conference (TIA 2013), in press]


  • Lexical variants: lexical variants are defined as those variants that are semantically coincident but formally different, and which are mainly motivated by grammatical requirements, style (Wortklang), and linguistic economy (helping to avoid excessive denominative repetition and improving textual coherence)
  1. Orthographic variants
    1. Diatopic variants (e.g., local-ize vs. localise)
    2. Diachronic variants (e.g., different scripts for languages such as Azeri)
    3. Ideographic variants (e.g., in Japanese both “寿司” and “鮨” are used for sushi)
  2. Affixal variants
    1. Derivational variants (e.g., adjective -> adverb variation: quick vs. quickly)
    2. Inflexional variants (e.g., adjective agreement: rojo, roja, rojos, rojas)
  3. Morphosyntactic variants
    1. Compounds (e.g., ecological tourism vs. eco-tourism)
    2. Abbreviations (including ac-ronyms, among others. E.g., peer to peer and p2p; WYSWYG, FAO, UNO, etc.)
    3. Rephrasing variants (e.g., immigration law vs. law for regulating and controlling immigration)


  • Terminological variants: variants that are not only formally, but also semantically different, and this difference is intentionally caused. In this type of terminological variants, the denomination or term itself is a clear indicator of the reasons or causes for variation. These reasons can be the origins of the authors, in the case of diatopic variants; the different communicative registers, in the case of diaphasic variants (also termed functional variants); the stylistic or expressive needs of the authors, as for the so-called diastratic variants; and the different conceptualizations, approaches or perspectives underlying them, in what we have termed dimensional variants.
  1. Diatopic (dialectal or geographical variants) (e.g., gasoline vs. petrol)
  2. Diaphasic (register) (e.g., headache and cephalalgia; swine flu and pig flu and H1N1 and Mexican pandemic flu)
  3. Diachronic (or chronological variants) (e.g., tuberculosis and phthisis)
  4. Diastratic (discursive or stylistic vari-ants) (e.g., man vs. bloke)
  5. Dimensional variants: the terms point to the same concept but highlight a different property or dimension of the concept (e.g., biosanitary waste vs. hospital waste; Novel Coronavirus vs. Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus; obsolete technology vs. dangerous technology )
    1. Cross-lingual dimensional variants: the concept exists in both cultures, but the terms highlight different aspects of the concept or approach it from different perspectives (e.g., madre de alquiler (lit. rental mother) in Spanish vs. mere porteuse (carrier mother) in French vs. surrogate mother in Eng-lish.
  6. Cross-lingual variants
    1. Translations (e.g., the translation nogomet instead of the loanword fudbal for soccer in Serbo-Croatian)
    2. Descriptions or glosses (when the concept does not exist in the target language and a literal translation or gloss is used) (e.g., École normale and French Normal School, Panetone vs. Panetone, Italian Christmas cake)


  • Semantic variants: variants thar are mainly caused by different conceptualization and/or motivations. We could say that these term variants are se-mantically and formally different, as in the case of terminological variants, but they usually point to two closely related, but different, ontological concepts, which means that they are also conceptually different.
  1. Vertical (general-specific) variants (e.g., benign neoplasms vs. benign mouse skin tumours)
    1. Cross-lingual vertical variants (e.g., river in English vs. rivière and fleuve in French; testamento in Spanish vs. testament and last will in English)
  2. Horizontal variants (counterparts or closest equivalents):
    1. Cross-lingual horizontal variants (e.g., Prime Minister in English vs. Presidente del Gobierno in Spanish)

Specification of Requirements “Properties and relations of lexical entries”(revised synthesis by Elena / Lupe) 31/01/2013

The ontology-lexicon model must allow for the representation of relations between lexical entries within the same language, and relations between lexical entries in different languages.

Depending on the type of relation, the ontology-lexicon model must support the representation of the following relations:


  1. Relations between lexical entries pointing to the same sense and to same concept (e.g., cat and cats; FAO and Food and Agriculture Organization)
  2. Relations between lexical entries pointing to different senses, which, in its turn, point to the same concept (e.g., man and bloke; gasoline and petrol; Panettone and bizcocho italiano; École normale and French Normal School).
  3. Relations between lexical entries pointing to different senses, which, in its turn, point to different concepts -which sometimes are in a subclassOf relation- (e.g., religious building and mosque; MRSA and hospital-acquired MRSA; river and rivière/fleuve; esquina and rincón in Spanish, and corner in English; catedrático and full professor)


By allowing all these representation possibilities, the ontology-lexicon model would cater for the following set of lexical, terminological and semantic relations:


  • Lexical variants (to represent as 1)
  1. Orthographic variants
    1. Diatopic variants (localize and localise)
    2. Diachronic variants (different scripts for Azeri)
    3. Semantic-orthographic variants (toru in Japanese)
  2. Morphological variants
    1. Affixal variants
      • Derivational variants
      • Inflexional variants
    2. Compounds (ecological tourism and eco-tourism)
    3. Abbreviations (including acronyms, among others. Examples: peer to peer- ptp; WYSWYG, FAO, UNESCO, etc.)


  • Terminological variants (to represent as 2)
  1. Diastratic variants stylistic or connotative variants (man and bloke)
  2. Diachronic variants (tuberculosis and phthisis)
  3. Diatopic variants dialectal variants (gasoline vs. petrol)
  4. Diaphasic variants pragmatic or register variants (headache and cephalalgia; swine flu and pig flu and H1N1 and Mexic pandemic flu)
  5. Rephrasing variants (immigration law and law for regulating and controlling immigration)
  6. Literal translations (École normal and Normal School; Presidente del Gobierno and Spanish Prime Ministe)
  7. Descriptive translations (Panettone and bizcocho italiano que se consume en Nochevieja)


  • Semantic variants (to represent as 3 and 4)
  1. Hypernym/Hyponym (antonymy)
  2. Cross-lingual near equivalents (broad/narrow equivalents)

Examples (last update 27/02/2013 by Jorge/Elena/Lupe)

1. Diatopic variants (as a type of orthographic variant)

http://wordnet.rkbexplorer.com/id/synset-theater-noun-1. This diatopic variant is not captured as such in Wordnet, but the relation between the American (theater) and the British variant (theatre) is related by means of the relation “wordnet:containsWordSense” (and the same happens between “theatre” and “house”, e.g., the house is full). And in DBpedia it is informally captured in the definition.

Example in RDF: 

# See also: lemon cookbook examples 1, 5, 8 and 26, http://www.isocat.org/rest/dc/3669
# NOTE: we are doing the assumption here that "en-gb" and "en-usa" are the same language

@base <http://www.example.org/myExampleLexicon>
@prefix dbpedia: <http://dbpedia.org/page/> 
@prefix dbpedia-es: <http://es.dbpedia.org/page/> 
@prefix lemon: <http://www.monnetproject.eu/lemon#>
@prefix wn: <http://wordnet.rkbexplorer.com/id/>
@prefix isocat: <http://www.isocat.org/datcat/>
@prefix biontology-icd: <http://purl.bioontology.org/ontology/ICD9CM/>
@prefix biontology-medra: <http://purl.bioontology.org/ontology/MDR/>

:myExampleLexicon a lemon:Lexicon ;
     lemon:language "en" ;
     lemon:entry :theatre .

:theatre a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
     lemon:sense [ lemon:reference wn:synset-theater-noun-1 ] .

Option 1 (same lexical entry, different language tags): 

:theatre lemon:canonicalForm [
     lemon:writtenRep "theater"@en-us ;
     lemon:writtenRep "theatre"@en-gb ]

Option 2 (lexical variant between lexical entries, same reference): 

:theatre a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
     lemon:sense [ lemon:reference wn:synset-theater-noun-1 ] ; 
     lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "theatre"@en-gb ] .

:theater a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
     lemon:sense [ lemon:reference wn:synset-theater-noun-1 ] ; 
     lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "theater"@en-us ] .

:theater lemon:lexicalVariant :theatre . 

:diatopicVariant rdfs:subPropertyOf lemon:lexicalVariant ;
:theater :diatopicVariant :theatre .

NOTE: 'diatopicVariant' does not exist in lemon. It exists the category "diatopical" in ISOCAT, though (http://www.isocat.org/rest/dc/3669).

Comment-01

TODO: Add another relation but at the level of form

2. Compounds (as a type of morphological (?) variant)

http://dbpedia.org/page/Ecotourism. When looking for Ecological tourism in DBpedia, you are redirected to the page of Ecotourism (Turismo ecológico in Spanish). The relation between "Ecological tourism" and "Ecotourism" in DBpedia is “dbpedia-owl:wikPageRedirects”.

Example in RDF: 

:ecotourism a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
  lemon:sense [ lemon:reference dbpedia:Ecotourism ] .

# Lexical variant between lexical entries:

:ecotourism a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
     lemon:sense [ lemon:reference dbpedia:Ecotourism ] ;
     lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "Ecotourism"@en ] ;

:ecological_tourism a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
      lemon:sense [ lemon:reference dbpedia:Ecotourism ] ;
      lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "Ecological tourism"@en ] ;

:compoundVariant rdfs:subPropertyOf lemon:lexicalVariant ;
:ecological_tourism :compoundVariant :ecotourism .

NOTE: 'compoundVariant' does not exist in lemon.

Comment-02

3. Abbreviations (as a type of morphological variant)

http://dbpedia.org/page/Peer-to-peer http://dbpedia.org/page/P2P When looking for P2P in DBpedia, there is no relation with the full form Peer-to-peer, which also has its own entry (or main page) in dbpedia.

Example in RDF: 

# See also: lemon cookbook example 25, http://www.isocat.org/datcat/DC-241, 
#           http://www.isocat.org/datcat/DC-321, http://www.isocat.org/datcat/DC-329
# Note: we will use human readable names for isocat categories rather than their usual code

:p2p a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
  lemon:sense [ lemon:reference dbpedia:Peer-to-peer ] ;
   lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "P2P"@en ] .

:peer_to_peer a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
  lemon:sense [ lemon:reference dbpedia:Peer-to-peer ] ;
   lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "Peer-to-peer"@en ] .

Option 1 (as relations between lexical entries) 

isocat:fullFormFor rdfs:subPropertyOf lemon:lexicalVariant .
isocat:initialismFor rdfs:subPropertyOf lemon:lexicalVariant .

:peer_to_peer isocat:fullFormFor :p2p .
:p2p isocat:initialismFor :peer_to_peer .

Option 2 (as attribute of each single lexical entry) 

:hasType a owl:ObjectProperty ;
    rdfs:domain: lemon:lexicalEntry .

:peer_to_peer :hasType isocat:fullForm .
:p2p :hasType isocat:abbreviatedForm .

NOTE: there is no "type" property of the lexical entry in lemon currently Comment-03

4. Diachronic variants (as a type of terminological variant)

http://dbpedia.org/page/Tuberculosis. When looking for phthisis in DBpedia, you are redirected to the page of tuberculosis, but the relation between these two terms is not explicitly stated. In WordNet, however, there is an entry for tuberculosis (http://wordnet.rkbexplorer.com/id/synset-tuberculosis-noun-1), and another one for phthisis (http://wordnet.rkbexplorer.com/id/wordsense-phthisis-noun-1), but they are not explicitly linked. Tuberculosis is linked with TB and T.B. by means of the “wordnet:containsWordSense” relation.

Example in RDF: 

# See also lemon cookbook example 9, http://www.isocat.org/datcat/DC-505, http://www.isocat.org/datcat/DC-506
# NOTE: in lemon, hiddenRef represents a term that is not used for various reasons (for example it is antiquated)

 :tuberculosis a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
       lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "pulmonary tuberculosis"@en ]
 :phthisis a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
       lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "phthisis"@en ]

Option 1 (one lexical entry is preferred and the other hidden; this example does not work for two different references): 

biontology-icd:011  lemon:prefRef :tuberculosis_sense .
:tuberculosis_sense lemon:isSenseOf :tuberculosis .

biontology-icd:011  lemon:hiddenRef :phthisis_sense .
:phthisis_sense lemon:isSenseOf :phthisis .

Option 2 (senses are related; in this example we put two different references): 

biontology-icd:011  lemon:isReferenceOf :tuberculosis_sense .
:tuberculosis_sense lemon:isSenseOf :tuberculosis .

biontology-medra:011  lemon:isReferenceOf :phthisis_sense .
:phthisis_sense lemon:isSenseOf :phthisis .

:diachronicVariant rdfs:subpropertyOf lemon:senseRelation .
:phthisis_sense  :diachronicVariant :tuberculosis_sense .

Option 3 (“obsolete” is an attribute of the sense) 

biontology-icd:011  lemon:isReferenceOf :tuberculosis_sense [ lemon:isSenseOf :tuberculosis] .

biontology-icd:011  lemon:isReferenceOf :phthisis_sense [ lemon:isSenseOf :phthisis] .

isocat:temporalQualifier rdfs:subPropertyOf lemon:property
:phthisis_sense isocat:temporalQualifier isocat:obsoleteForm .

Comment-04 COMMENT: Is it better to define isocat:temporalQualifier as a subclass of lemon:context ?

COMMENT: What about defining :diachronicVariant as a lemon:lexicalVariant between lexical entries? or isocat:temporalQualifier as attribute of lexical entry? (same for isocat:geographicalUsage in the next example)

5. Diatopic variants (as a type of terminological variant)

http://dbpedia.org/page/Trade_union. DBpedia has many redirects (labor union, labor unions, labor organizations, etc.) to the main page "Sindicato". Another example of a diatopic variant is represented by maize and corn. In AGROVOC they are related by means of the "altLable" relation (see http://aims.fao.org/aos/agrovoc/c_12332).

Example in RDF: 

# See also http://www.isocat.org/datcat/DC-243

 :gasoline a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
       lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "gasoline"@en ] .

 :petrol a lemon:LexicalEntry ;
          lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "petrol"@en ] .

# 'GeographicalUsage' is created as an attribute of the sense 

isocat:geographicalUsage  rdfs:subPropertyOf lemon:context .

:gasoline_sense lemon:reference http://dbpedia.org/page/Gasoline ;
      lemon:isSenseOf :gasoline ;
      isocat:geographicalUsage “en-usa”.

:petrol_sense lemon:reference http://dbpedia.org/page/Gasoline ;
      lemon:isSenseOf :gasoline ;
      isocat:geographicalUsage “en-gb”.

# a relation 'diatopicVariant' is established between senses

:gasoline_sense lemon:reference http://dbpedia.org/page/Gasoline ;
      lemon:isSenseOf :gasoline .

:petrol_sense lemon:reference http://dbpedia.org/page/Gasoline ;
      lemon:isSenseOf :gasoline .

:diatopicVariant rdfs:subpropertyOf lemon:senseRelation .

:gasoline_sense  :diatopicVariant :petrol_sense

Comment-05

6. Diaphasic variants (as a type of terminological variant)

http://dbpedia.org/page/Tuberculosis. DBpedia has many redirects (phthisis, primary tuberculosis, secondary tuberculosis, etc.) to the main page "Tuberculosis". The same happens with Bovine spongiform encephalopathy. The dbpedia page has many redirects mad cow disease (http://dbpedia.org/page/Bovine_spongiform_encephalopathy)


7. Literal translations (as a type of terminological variant)

Example in RDF: 

# See also: lemon cookbook example 29

:myLexiconES a lemon:Lexicon ;
     lemon:language "es"
     lemon:entry :presidente_del_gobierno.

:myLexiconEN a lemon:Lexicon ;
     lemon:language "en"
     lemon:entry :president_of_the_government.

:presidente_del_gobierno lemon:sense :presidente_del_gobierno_sense ; 
      lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "Presidente del Gobierno"@es ] .
:presidente_del_gobierno_sense lemon:reference dbpedia-es:Presidente_del_Gobierno .

:president_of_the_government lemon:sense :president_of_the_government_sense ;
      lemon:form [ lemon:writtenRep "President of the Government"@en ] .
:president_of_the_government_sense lemon:reference dbpedia-es:Presidente_del_Gobierno .

Option 1 (translation as a property): 

isocat:translation rdfs:subPropertyOf lemon:senseRelation .
:presidente_del_gobierno isocat:translation  :president_of_the_government .

Option 2 (translation as a concept, reifies relation between senses if more information is needed, i.e., confidence degree, translation source, ...): 

:Translation a owl:Class .
:translationSource a owl:ObjectProperty ; 
     rdfs:domain :Translation;
     rdfs:range lemon:sense.

:translationTarget a owl:ObjectProperty ;
    rdfs:domain :Translation;
    rdfs:range lemon:sense.
 
:myTranslation a  :Translation ;  
    :translationSource :president_of_the_government_sense ;
    :translationTarget :presidente_del_gobierno_sense ;

Option 3 (translation as a concept, reifies relation between anything, e.g., SKOS-XL labels, lemon lexical entries, ...): 

:Translation a owl:Class .
:translationSource a owl:ObjectProperty ; 
     rdfs:domain :Translation.
  
:translationTarget a owl:ObjectProperty ;
    rdfs:domain :Translation.
 
:myTranslation a  :Translation ;  
    :translationSource :president_of_the_government ;
    :translationTarget :presidente_del_gobierno .

NOTE: options 2 and 3 (translation as a class) are not currently supported in lemon

COMMENT: still pending to express this as literal translation (e.g., by adding an attribute to :Translation )

8. Cultural equivalence translations (as a type of terminological variant)

E.g., presidente del gobierno <-> prime minister

Summary on Requirements on Properties and Relations of Entries (Synthesis by Elena / Lupe)

Distinction between Multilingual + Cross-lingual

  • Multilingual labeling approach: In a multilingual labeling approach, we have a single conceptual structure, and we provide alternative labeling information in the ontology-lexicon model for each of the languages covered (in the same language or in different languages). This is possible whenever the languages covered share a single view on a certain domain. In this case, there will always be one or several labels in each natural language for naming or terming the concepts in the ontology.
  • Cross-lingual linking or mapping approach: In this second scenario, there exist two independent monolingual ontologies, defined in different languages, but covering the same or similar subject domain. We aim at establishing links between the labels that describe the two ontologies. The establishment of these cross-lingual links could derive in cross-lingual ontology mappings. In this scenario, the conceptual structure of each ontology is modeled independently, and “linguistic links” or “mappings” can be established between the two.
  1. Cross-lingual equivalence relations, as in the multilingual labeling scenario. These would establish a relation between concepts that are not exactly the same (do not have the same intension and/or extension), but are close equivalents, because no exact equivalent exists. Example: full professor in English – catedrático in Spanish – Professor in German. In order to distinguish them from the cross-lingual equivalents in the multilingual labeling scenario, we could term them: cross-lingual close equivalents? Cross-lingual near equivalents? Suggestions are welcome!!
  2. Cross-lingual broad (narrow) equivalence relations. These would establish a relation between concepts with different levels of granularity. This usually happens when one culture understands a concept or phenomenon with a higher granularity than the other, i.e., one culture has two or more concepts (and in its turn, terms for naming them) to describe the same phenomenon. Example: river in English – rivière and fleuve in French; Tötung in German – asesinato and homicidio in Spanish. Here again, suggestions for better examples are welcome. In the case no equivalent exists, we could still provide a term or description, using for this a mixed scenario, i.e., providing some labels or lexical entries for the concept we do not find an equivalent term in the other ontology, as in the multilingual labeling approach. For this, we consider two options:
  3. Literal translation relations. These are translations of terms that describe concepts that do not exist in the target language, and for which a literal or “word for word translation” is provided so that the concept is understood by the target language. Example: École normal in French– (French) Normal School in English; Presidente del Gobierno in Spanish – President of the Government in English.
  4. Descriptive translation relations. These are translations of terms that describe concepts that do not exist in the target language, and for which a description or definition (and not a term) is provided in the target language. Example: Panetone in Italian – bizcocho italiano que se consume en Nochevieja in Spanish. In this case, we could also opt for repeating the Italian Word plus the gloss.

Classification of relationships

As proposed by Lupe + Elena

  1. Synomyms or terminological units that totally correspond to the same concept:
    • graphical and orthographical variants (localization and localisation);
    • inflectional variants (cat and cats);
    • morphosyntactic variants (nitrogen fixation and fixation of nitrogen).
  2. Partial synonyms or terminological units that highlight different aspects of the same concept:
    • stylistic or connotative variants (man and bloke)
    • diachronic variants (tuberculosis and phthisis)
    • dialectal variants (gasoline vs. petrol)
    • pragmatic or register variants (headache and cephalalgia; swine flu and pig flu and H1N1 and Mexic pandemic flu)
    • explicative variants (immigration law and law for regulating and controlling immigration)

As proposed by John

  1. Lexical variants
    1. Orthographic variants
      • Historical Orthographic variants. e.g., different scripts such as for Azeri (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Azerbaijani_alphabet)
      • Geo-orthographic variants. e.g., "localize" vs. "localise"
      • Semantic-orthographics variants. e.g., "取る" (toru - "to take (remove from a location)") vs "撮る" (toru - "to take (a photo)")
    2. Single lexeme morphological variation
      • Pluralization
      • Verb form inflection
      • Comparatives and superlatives
    3. Multi-lexeme variation
      • Compounds, e.g., "wirtschaftliche Wissenschaft" vs. "Wirtschaftswissenschaft"; "ecological tourism" -> "eco-tourism"
      • Rephrasing: e.g., "cancer of the mouth" vs. "mouth cancer"
      • Affixial Derivation (e.g., Nominalization): e.g., "lexicon", "lexical", "lexicalize"; "happy" -> "happiness"
      • Pleonasm: "tuna" vs "tuna fish"
      • Abbreviation: e.g., AIDS..... Philipp> Any variation has some (sight) pragmatic implication, abbreviation for me is morphosyntactic as the motivation is brevity rather than connotation.
  2. Terminological variants
    1. Pragmatic Variants
      • stylistic or connotative variants (man and bloke)
      • diachronic variants (tuberculosis and phthisis)
      • dialectal variants (gasoline vs. petrol)
      • pragmatic or register variants (headache and cephalalgia; swine flu and pig flu and H1N1 and Mexic pandemic flu)
    2. Circumlocutive variants
      • explicative variants (immigration law and law for regulating and controlling immigration)
  3. Semantic variants
    1. Non-synonymous variants
      • Modification: "MRSA", vs "hospital-acquired MRSA"
      • Hypernym/Hyponymy/Antonymy
      • Cross-lingual narrowing/broadening: "river" vs "rivière/fleuve"

Case for merging properties and relations requirement

The reasoning is that it seems that the definition of relations relies heavily on the definition of properties. i.e., to model geographical variants, register variants or diachronic variants, we need to be able to state the geographical, register or diachronic properties of the two variants. As such we can think of variation in terms of the properties that vary and those that do not. Put more clearly, variants are entries that are similar (have the same property values) except for some property, e.g., translation is variation in language, pluralization is variation in number, etc.

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