wnb - WordNet window-based browser interface
wnb
wnb() provides a window-based interface for browsing the WordNet database, allowing synsets and relations to be displayed as formatted text. For each search word, different searches are available based on syntactic category and information available in the database.
wnb is written in Tcl/Tk, which is available for Unix, PC and Macintosh platforms. This allows the same code to work on all supported WordNet platforms without modification.
wnb() was developed with the philosophy that only those searches and buttons that are applicable at the current time are displayed. As a result, the appearance of the interface changes as it is used. Use the standard windowing system mouse functions to open and close the WordNet Browser Window, move the window, and change its size.
The WordNet Browser Window contains the following areas, from top to bottom:
At the right edge of the Search
Selection line is a box for entering sense numbers. When this box is empty, search results for all senses of the search word that match the search type are displayed. The search may be restricted to one or more specific senses by entering a comma or space separated list of sense numbers in the Senses box. These sense numbers remain in effect until either the user changes or deletes them, or a new search word is entered.
The WordNet browser navigates through WordNet in two steps. First a search word is entered and an overview of all the senses of the word in all syntactic categories is displayed in the Results Window. Then, within a syntactic category, a specific search is selected. The desired search is performed and the search results are displayed in the Results Window. Additional searches on the same word can be performed, or a new search word can be entered.
To enter a search word, click the mouse in the horizontal box labeled Search Word, type a single word, hyphenated string, or collocation and press RETURN.
wnb() responds by making a set of Part of Speech buttons appear in the Search Selection line. Each button corresponds to a syntactic category in which the search string is defined in WordNet. At the same time, an Overview of the synsets for all senses of the search word is displayed in the Results Window. The Overview includes the gloss for each synset and also indicates which of the senses have appeared in the semantically tagged texts.
The pulldown menus in the Search Selection line list all of the WordNet searches that can be performed for the search word in that part of speech. To select a search, highlight it by dragging the mouse to it, and release the mouse while it is highlighted. Drag the mouse outside of the pulldown list and release to hide the menu without making a selection. Dragging the mouse across the Part of Speech buttons displays the available searches for each syntactic category.
To restrict a search to one or more senses within a syntactic category, enter a comma or space separated list of sense numbers in the Senses box before selecting a search.
After a search is selected, wnb() performs the search on the WordNet database and displays the formatted results in the Results Window. Whenever search results are displayed, a button entitled Redisplay Overview is present at the right edge of the Search Word Entry line. Clicking on this button redisplays the Overview of all synsets for the search word in the Results Window.
Changing the Search Word
A new search word can be entered at any time by moving to
the Search Word Entry box, if necessary highlighting it by
clicking, erasing the old string, typing a new one and
pressing RETURN. The Senses box is cleared if necessary, the
Part of Speech buttons applicable to the new search word
appear, and the Overview for the new search word is
displayed.
Interrupting a Search
When a search is in progress the message «Searching...(press
escape to abort)» is displayed in the Status Line. Note
that most searches return very quickly, so this message
isn't noticeable. As indicated, pressing the ESCAPE key
will interrupt the search. The results of the search
obtained before the time the search was interrupted are
displayed in the Results Window.
File Menu
Find keywords by substring
Display a popup window for specifying a search of
WordNet for words or collocations that contain a
specific substring. If a search word is currently
entered in the Search Word box, it is used as the
substring to search for by default. The Substring
Search Window contains a box for entering a substring,
a pulldown menu to its right for specifying
the part of speech to search, a large area for
displaying the search results, and action buttons
at the bottom entitled Search, Save, Print, and
Dismiss.
Once a substring is entered and a part of speech selected, clicking on the Search button causes a search to be done for all words and collocations in WordNet, in that syntactic category, that contain the substring according to the following criteria:
1. The substring can appear at the beginning or end of a word, hyphenated string or collocation.
2. The substring can appear in the middle of a hyphenated string or collocation, but only delimited on both sides by spaces or hyphens.
The search results are displayed in the large buffer. Clicking on an item from the search results list causes wnb() to automatically enter that word in the Search Word box of the WordNet Browser Window and perform the Overview search.
Clicking the Save button generates a popup dialog for specifying a filename to save the substring search results to. Clicking the Print button generates a popup dialog in which a print command can be specified.
Selecting Dismiss closes the Substring Search Window.
Save current display
Display a popup dialog for specifying a filename
to save the current Results Window contents to.
Print current display
Display a popup dialog in which to specify a print
command to which the current Results Window contents
can be piped.
Clear current display
Clear the Search Word and Senses boxes, and
Results Window.
Exit Does what you would expect.
History
This pulldown menu contains a list of the last searches performed.
Selecting an item from this list performs that
search again. The maximum number of searches stored in the
list can be adjusted from the Options menu. The default is
10.
Options
Show help with each search
When this checkbox is selected search results are
preceded by some explanatory text about the type
of search selected. This is off by default.
Show descriptive gloss
When this checkbox is selected, synset glosses are
displayed in all search results. This is set by
default. Note that glosses are always displayed
in the Overview.
Lexical file information
This pullright menu item determines when information
about which lexicographer file a synset came
from should be displayed. Choices are:
Don't show (default)
Show with searches
Show with searches and overview
When shown, the name of the lexicographer file is printed before each synset, enclosed in angle brackets (< ... >). When both lexical file information and synset location information are displayed, the synset location information appears first. If within one lexicographer file more than one sense of a word is entered, an integer lex_id is appended onto all but one of the word's instances to uniquely identify it. In each synset, each word having a non-zero lex_id is printed with the lex_id value printed immediately following the word. If both lexicographer information and sense numbers are displayed, lex_ids, if present, precede sense numbers.
Synset location in database file
This pullright menu item determines when the location
of synsets in the database files
(synset_offset) should be displayed. Choices are:
Don't show (default)
Show with searches
Show with searches and overview
When shown, the byte offset of the synset in the database «data» file corresponding to the syntactic category of the synset is printed before each synset, enclosed in curly braces ({ ... }). When both lexical file information and synset location information are displayed, the synset location information appears first.
Sense number
This pullright menu item determines when each word
in each synset should be followed by its WordNet
sense number. Choices are:
Don't show (default)
Show with searches
Show with searches and overview
When shown, the sense number of each word in each synset is printed immediately after the word, and is preceded by a number sign (#).
Set maximum history length
Display a popup dialog in which the maximum number
of previous searches to be kept on the History
list can be set.
Font This pullright menu item determines the font and font size to use for the Results Window. Choices for font are: Courier, Helvetica, and Times (default). Font size can be small, medium (default), or large.
Help
Help on using the WordNet browser
Display this manual page.
Help on WordNet terminology
Display the wngloss(7WN)
manual page.
Display the WordNet license
Display the WordNet copyright notice and license
agreement.
About the WordNet browser
Information about this application.
Clicking on any word in the Results Window while holding down the SHIFT key on the keyboard causes the browser to replace Search Word with the word and display its Overview and available searches.
Pressing the CONTROL-S keys causes the browser to do as above on the text that is currently highlighted, even it if is in another window. This method works on hyphenated strings and collocations, as well as individual words.
Pressing the CONTROL-G keys displays the Substring Search Window.
The results of a search of the WordNet database are displayed in the Results Window. Horizontal and vertical scroll bars are present for scrolling through the search results.
All searches other than the Overview list all senses matching the search results in the following general format. Items enclosed in italicized square brackets ([ ... ]) may not be present.
One line listing the number of senses matching the search selected.
Each sense matching the search selected displayed as
follows:
Sense n
[{synset_offset}] [<lex_filename>] word1[#sense_number][, word2...]
Where n is the sense number of the search word, synset_offset is the byte offset of the synset in the data.pos file corresponding to the syntactic category, lex_filename is the name of the lexicographer file that the synset comes from, word1 is the first word in the synset (note that this is not necessarily the search word) and sense_number is the WordNet sense number assigned to the preceding word. synset_offset, lex_filename, and sense_number are generated if the appropriate Options are specified.
The synsets matching the search selected are printed below each sense's synset output described above. Each line of output is preceded by a marker (usually =>), then a synset, formatted as described above. If a search traverses more one level of the tree, then successive lines are indented by spaces corresponding to its level in the hierarchy. Glosses are displayed in parentheses at the end of each synset if the appropriate Option is set. Each synset is printed on one line.
Senses are generally ordered from most to least frequently used, with the most common sense numbered 1. Frequency of use is determined by the number of times a sense is tagged in the various semantic concordance texts. Senses that are not semantically tagged follow the ordered senses.
Noun and verb senses can be grouped by similarity of meaning, rather than ordered by frequency of use. When the «Synonyms, grouped by similarity of meaning» search is selected, senses that are close in meaning are printed together, with a line of dashes indicating the end of a group. See wngroups(7WN) for a discussion how senses are grouped.
When the «Sentence Frames» search is specified, sample illustrative sentences and generic sentence frames are displayed. If a sample sentence is found, the base form of the search word is substituted into the sentence, and it is printed below the synset, preceded with the EX: marker. When no sample sentences are found, the generic sentence frames are displayed. Sentence frames that are acceptable for all words in a synset are preceded by the marker *>. If a frame is acceptable for the search word only, it is preceded by the marker =>.
Search results for adjectives are slightly different from those for other parts of speech. When an adjective is printed, its direct antonym, if it has one, is also printed in parentheses. When the search word is in a head synset, all of the head synset's satellites are also displayed. The position of an adjective in relation to the noun may be restricted to the prenomi_nal, postnominal or predicative position. Where present, these restrictions are noted in parentheses.
When an adjective is a participle of a verb, the output indicates the verb and displays its synset.
When an adverb is derived from an adjective, the specific adjectival sense on which it is based is indicated.
The morphological transformations performed by the search code may result in more than one word to search for. wnb() automatically performs the requested search on all of the strings and returns the results grouped by word. For example, the verb saw is both the present tense of saw and the past tense of see. When there is more than one word to search for, search results are grouped by word.
If the WordNet database files cannot be opened, error messages are displayed. This is usually corrected by setting the environment variables described below to the proper location of the WordNet database for your installation.
All files are in the directory WNSEARCHDIR.
wnintro(3WN) , lexnames(5WN) , senseindex(5WN) , wndb(5WN) , wninput(5WN) , morphy(7WN) , wngloss(7WN) , wngroups(7WN) .
Depending on the computer platform used, some hierarchical searches, grouping of senses by similarity of meaning, and substring searches may be slow.
The help text displayed when «Show help with each search» is selected is admittedly poor.
Please reports bugs to wordnet@princeton.edu.