Cross-language information retrieval using EuroWordNet and word sense disambiguation

Abstract

One of the aims of EuroWordNet (EWN) was to provide a resource for Cross-Language Information Retrieval (CLIR). In this paper we present experiments which test the usefulness of EWN for this purpose via a formal evaluation using the Spanish queries from the TREC6 CLIR test set. All CLIR systems using bilingual dictionaries must find a way of dealing with multiple translations and we employ a Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD) algorithm for this purpose. It was found that this algorithm achieved only around 50% correct disambiguation when compared with manual judgement, however, retrieval performance using the senses it returned was 90% of that recorded using manually disambiguated queries. © Sp..