A Rule-Based Meronymy Extraction Module for Portuguese

Abstract

In this article, we improve the extraction of semantic relations between textual elements as it is currently performed by STRING, a hybrid statistical and rulebased Natural Language Processing (NLP) chain for Portuguese, by targeting whole-part relations (meronymy), that is, a semantic relation between an entity that is perceived as a constituent part of another entity, or a member of a set. In this case, we focus on the type of meronymy involving human entities and body-part nouns (Nbp) (e.g., O Pedro partiu uma perna `Pedro broke a leg': WHOLE-PART(Pedro,perna) 'WHOLE-PART(Pedro,leg)'). In order to extract this type of whole-part relations, a rule-based meronymy extraction module has been built and integrated in the grammar of the STRING system. The module was evaluated with promising results.