CMU-AT: Semantic Distance and Background Knowledge for Identifying Semantic Relations

This system uses a background knowledge base to identify semantic relations between base noun phrases in English text, as evaluated in SemEval 2007, Task 4. Training data for each relation is converted to statements in the Scone Knowledge Representation Language. At testing time a new Scone statement is created for the sentence under scrutiny, and presence or absence of a relation is calculated by comparing the total semantic distance between the new statement and all positive examples to the total distance between the new statement and all negative examples.