Control and Verification of Relations in the Creation of Ontology- Based Electronic Dictionaries for Language Learning

In our previous work, we used a methodology based on software engineering principles to develop tools for building and querying electronic dictionaries based on a DAG-shaped taxonomy, with language learning purposes. However, the tools do not enforce any kind of control over the use of semantic relations during the DAG-shaped taxonomy construction. In order to teach specific semantic relations (e.g., is-a, part-of, etc.) the tools must control their appropriate usage, thus preventing learners from relying in their intuition to construct the taxonomy, and hence forefend them from making inappropriate and inconsistent modelling choices. Based on an analysis of common problems in existing lexical resources, we present a conceptual model as a first step towards the use of the methodology for the construction of dictionary building educational tools, where the usage of relations can be controlled by refining the semantics of concepts and relations.