Automatically deriving structured knowledge bases from on-line dictionaries1

keywords: computational lexicography; lexical knowledge bases We describe an automated strategy which exploits on-line dictionaries to construct a richly-structured lexical knowledge base. In particular, we show how the Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English (LDOCE) can be used to build a directed graph which captures semantic associations between words. The result is a huge and highly interconnected network of words linked by arcs labeled with semantic relations such as Hypernym, Part_of, Location, and Purpose. We argue that this knowledge base provides much more detailed information about word meanings than can be obtained using standard lexical lookup procedures or by relying on statistical measures of semantic associations among words. 1We would like thank the other members of the Microsoft Natural Language group: Joseph Pentheroudakis, Karen Jensen, George Heidorn, and Diana Peterson.