Background and Introduction

Professor George Miller of the Cognitive Science Laboratory of Princeton University directed the development a lexicographic database called WordNet.

Princeton maintains a server by which the WordNet database can be browsed via the World Wide Web.

The WordNet database is implemented as a set of text files. Mark Nahabedian (naha@mit.edu) has developed an interface to this database written in Common Lisp. This software provides an interface by which Common Lisp programs can access lexicographic data from WordNet.

2 Min Overview

Some Exported Functions

A complete list can be found in packages.lisp with more documentation here.

wordnet

• synsets-containing-word/s
• get-synonyms
• get-antonyms
• synset-words
• part-of-speech
• cached-index-lookup
• index-entry-synsets

NOTE 1: A point of note is the part-of-speech. Arguments with this name can take the value :noun, :adjective, :verb or :adverb.

NOTE 2: I am not the author - these examples and explanations are all that I understand. There is more documentation available at the original repo - this is a forked one. Further, I have made part-of-speech as an optional argument in synsets-containing-word/s, and get-synonyms; the former function is named synsets-containing-words in the original repo.

Class Hierarchy

(wordnet-object ;; private
  (wordnet-synset-entry
    (wordnet-noun-entry
     wordnet-verb-entry
     wordnet-adjective-entry
     wordnet-adverb-entry)
  (wordnet-index-entry)
  (wordnet-pointer))

Examples

    CL-USER> (ql:quickload 'wordnet)
    (WORDNET)

    CL-USER> (use-package :wordnet)
    T

    CL-USER> (setq dog-synsets (synsets-containing-word/s "dog" :noun)
    ;; The first argument could be :dog or "dog" as well
    ;; The second argument is optional, if given, it could be :verb, :adverb or :adjective
    (#<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY dog domestic_dog Canis_familiaris  {1001CB36A3}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY frump dog  {1001CB7FD3}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY dog  {1001CBAAF3}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY cad bounder blackguard dog hound heel  {1001CBF193}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY frank frankfurter hotdog hot_dog dog wiener wienerwurst weenie    {1001CC4373}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY pawl detent click dog  {1001CC8053}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY andiron firedog dog dog-iron  {1001CCB733}>)

    CL-USER> (get-synonyms :joy) 
    ;; an optional argument specifying part-of-speech can also be supplied
    (("joy" 0) ("joyousness" 0) ("joyfulness" 0) ("joy" 0) ("delight" 0) 
     ("pleasure" 0))

    CL-USER> (get-antonyms 'joy :noun)
    ;; part-of-speech is not optional here 
    ("sorrow")

    ;;; ======== The above functions are implemented in examples.lisp ==========
    ;; The list of the exported functions can be found in packages.lisp.
    

    CL-USER> (synset-words (first dog-synsets))
    (("dog" 0) ("domestic_dog" 0) ("Canis_familiaris" 0))

    CL-USER> (part-of-speech (first dog-synsets))
    :NOUN

    CL-USER> (setq dog (cached-index-lookup 'dog :noun))
    #<WORDNET-INDEX-ENTRY NOUN dog {100298AD33}>    
    
    CL-USER> (setq dog-synsets (index-entry-synsets dog))
    (#<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY dog domestic_dog Canis_familiaris  {100291AAB3}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY frump dog  {100291F3E3}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY dog  {1002921F33}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY cad bounder blackguard dog hound heel  {10029265D3}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY frank frankfurter hotdog hot_dog dog wiener wienerwurst weenie        {100292B9F3}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY pawl detent click dog  {100292F6D3}>
     #<WORDNET-NOUN-ENTRY andiron firedog dog dog-iron  {1002932DC3}>)