Abstract
Different languages imply different visions of space, so that terminologies are different in geographic ontologies. In addition to their geometric shapes, geographic features have names, sometimes different in diverse languages. In addition, the role of gazetteers, as dictionaries of place names (toponyms), is to maintain relations between place names and location. The scope of geographic information retrieval is to search for geographic information not against a database, but against the whole Internet: but the Internet stores information in different languages, and it is of paramount importance not to remain stuck to a unique language. In this paper, our first step is to clarify the links between geographic objects as computer representations of geographic features, ontologies and gazetteers designed in various languages. Then, we propose some inference rules for matching not only types, but also relations in geographic ontologies with the assistance of gazetteers.
Highlights
Ontologies play a double role in information technologies as a key structure for both database interoperability and information retrieval
Any request against the Internet is enriched by using ontologies, and gazetteers, which can be loosely defined as dictionaries of place names or toponyms
We will examine two geographic ontologies respectively designed in different languages (Ω1 and Ω2), for instance one in English and one in Spanish
Summary
Ontologies play a double role in information technologies as a key structure for both database interoperability and information retrieval. Any request against the Internet is enriched by using ontologies, and gazetteers, which can be loosely defined as dictionaries of place names or toponyms. Imagine somebody looking for information about the Italian city of Venice on the Internet If he only speaks English, only English documents will be retrieved, whereas many documents are written in other languages, Italian in this case. Specialists or experts mastering both languages are asked to translate geographic ontologies manually. This can be done automatically by using gazetteers, or, geometric characteristics and toponyms, in order to match geographic concepts. The main contribution of this paper is to use geographic properties to match multilingual ontological concepts via gazetteers. Some inference rules of translating geographic concepts based on geographic properties of toponyms will be given
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