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The Complex Ontology

Elements of the complex ontology are actions, events, or their consequences that are themselves used as arguments to other verbs. For instance, in the sentence:

The Senate passed legislation.

the event legislation, the result of some entity legislating, is being used as the complement of the verb ``passed''.

The categories in the complex ontology, unlike those in the basic ontology, do not consist of a few top level classes with easily definable subclasses. There are relations amongst the classes in the complex ontology and these will be noted. However, the simple tree-like structure of the basic ontology will be absent.

The principal events that occur as arguments of higher-level events are the following:

Transaction: Not suprisingly, transacting is the fundamental action in the domain of the Wall Street Journal. A transaction involves a change of ownership of some asset or goods or services and has a minimum of two players, a buyer and a seller. Any verb synonymous with ``buy'', ``sell'', or ``trade'' is an example of a transaction verb.

Examples: acquire, auction, bid, buy, buyout, deal, divest, invest, sell, shed, swap, takeover, tender offer, trade, transact.

Supply, Demand: These two categories are the forces that drive transactions. Demand is a result of the preferences of the entities which buy, and supply is a result of what is manufactured in the case of goods, supplied in the case of services, and exists in the case of assets. Supply does not appear as an argument in the grammar rules for any verb.

Examples: demand, excitement, hoopla.

Profit, Revenue/Income: These categories are the result of transactions. Companies, primarily, but also other entities, earn money by transacting in the marketplace, selling goods, services, and occasionally assets to generate revenue. Profit is the difference between revenue and costs. In the text profit and revenue often occur in similar contexts.

Examples: income, profit, return, revenue, sales, turnover, volume.

Regulation: This is what governs transactions. Typically governmental agencies regulate transactions (among other things) to keep the marketplace functioning properly.

Examples: mandate, regulate, restrict.

Legislation: Legislation can be thought of as one of the mechanisms for regulating transactions. A legislative body passes laws and acts to govern and regulate the marketplace.

Examples: act, amendment, appropriation, bill, budget, guarantees, initiative, legislation, measure, measures, package, plan, proposition, referendum, reform, regulation, repeal, restriction, rule, statute, tax, veto.

Agreement: This category covers two entities agreeing on some particular issue. They may be agreeing to start an action, or to resolve one already in progress. One of the examples of agreement, ``contract'', can be thought of as the private sector equivalent of legislation. It is a means of regulating transactions between two or more parties in the marketplace. Agreements cover events not just in the market place, but also in the geopolitical realm as well.

Examples: agreement, cease fire, contract, deal, negotiate, pact, settlement, treaty, truce.

Dispute: This is often a precondition for an agreement, although not necessarily. A dispute is when two or more entities hold differing positions or views on some issue.

Examples: contention, disagreement, dispute, rift, strike, tension.

Proposal: This category is often a prelude to an agreement or a transaction. It involves one entity proposing some action to another.

Examples: apply, bid, idea, offer, plan, proposal, suggest.

Talk/Meet: To reach an agreement it is often necessary foe several entities to gather (physically or metaphorically) to discuss, make proposals, resolve disputes, and come to an agreement.

Examples: auction, confer, dialogue, discuss, hearing, meet, summit, talk.

Violation: When terms of legislation or an agreement are broken by one of the parties that entered into it, a violation has occurred.

Examples: bribe, cheat, deal drugs, embezzle, engage, fraud, misrepresent, steal, theft, violate.

Legal-Action: Frequently a violation begets a legal action. One of the parties to the legislation or contract that has been violated (frequently this party is the government) pursues recourse in a legal setting. In bankruptcy, for instance, a company seeks protection from creditors with whom the company violated an agreement to pay back money lent.

Some examples: affidavit, appeal, bankruptcy, charge, complain, defend, hearing, lawsuit, penalize, petition, probe, prosecute, protection, rule, suit, surrender <documents>, suspend, waive.

Build: This is one of the activities of companies. Frequently this action involves the construction of facilities such as factories or the development of real esate. It can also refer to less physical things such as building a team.

Examples: build, construct.

Reorganize: This is not a primary business activity like buying and selling, but it is often something that organizations, such as companies government agencies, do to operate more efficiently.

Examples: reorganize, restructure.

Text: This is something of a micellaneous category. It covers anything which is written, including, for example, music.

Examples: fiction, letter, memo, music, opinion, page, script, speech, statistics.

Publication: This is a subclass of Text. It includes any item of text that is or has been published.

Examples: article, book, data, excerpt, finding, journal, magazine, newsletter, newspaper, novel, publication, remarks, report, survey.

Time-Dependent Functions: This category includes things which are measured in quantifiable amounts and which vary over time. They usually take the form, ``the level of X'', where X can be almost anything measured or quantified. Categories already mentioned in this ontology, such as sales or profit, are examples. Also important are economic indicators, such as unemployment or housing starts. An important subclass of Time-Dependent Functions is Price. Often the price of X will be referred to where X is goods, services, or assets. Frequently merely X will be mentioned rather than ``the level of X''. For instance, when it is said that Monsanto closed highter, what is being referred to is the price of a share of Monsanto. Verbs which take time-dependent functions as arguments frequently involve change over time. These include ``boost'', ``drive'', '`drop'', ``jump'', and ``reduce''.

Spread: Spread is the difference between two time dependent functions.

Examples: deficit, loss, profit, surplus.


next up previous
Next: Patterns Using the Complex Up: Open-Domain Information Extraction from Previous: Patterns Using Only the
Jerry Hobbs 2004-02-24