The SIMPLE Semantic Lexicon has been developed in the framework of the SIMPLE project, which started in April 1998 and ran for twenty-four months. This project aimed at adding semantic information on top of the 12 language PAROLE morphological and syntactic lexica. All over the three description levels, these lexica share a common model, linguistic specifications, DTD and exchange format. PAROLE and SIMPLE language resources are general all-purpose NLP lexica.

1. Lexicon population

The SIMPLE Italian Lexicon consists of 10,105 word senses encoded at semantic level and released in SGML format. These semantic units (hereafter SemUs) are distributed among the categories of nouns (7,063), verbs (2,032) and adjectives (1,010). Each of them is linked to its corresponding morphological and syntactic units (hereafter SynUs) in the PAROLE Lexicon.

The starting point for the selection of the core SIMPLE Lexicon population was a set of WordNet 1.5 Base Concepts (hereafter BCs) (500 nouns, 200 verbs and 185 adjectives), ranked on the basis of the frequency parameter.

Italian lexical items corresponding to base concepts were searched in the EuroWordNet database, wherein the WN1.5 base concepts (which serve as Inter-Lingua-Index for the project) were already linked to local synsets. The Italian synsets linked to the selected set of WN1.5 base concepts through the two relations ‘Eq_Synonym’ and ‘Eq_Near_Synonym’ were automatically extracted. By contrast, the base concepts for which in EuroWordNet no immediate Italian equivalent was identified (those which had a different type of link to BCs, i.e. hyperonymy, hyponymy or meronymy) were disregarded. For nouns, e.g., these amount to 19 items. These elements are however somehow represented in our lexicon by virtue of their link to hyperonyms that are undoubtedly present in the list of candidate lexical units to encode.

The translated BCs were then checked against the encoded SynUs of the PAROLE Lexicon. This was a crucial step in order to ensure the linking of SIMPLE SemUs to the corresponding items of the PAROLE morphological and syntactic lexica.

Table 1 below summarizes the results.

It should be noted that, for those base concepts translated in EWN by means of Italian MWUs, a synonym single word lemma generally exists in the PAROLE syntactic lexicon. As for single word lemmas missing in PAROLE, most of them have been successively encoded at morphological and syntactic levels in order to become candidate to semantic encoding.

Besides this first core of SemUs, common to all partners of the SIMPLE project and which ensures to a certain extent uniformity of coverage across languages as well as possibility of comparison and assessment of data, the semantic lexicon population consists of a subset of entries of the Italian PAROLE lexicon.

A 10,000 entry lexical database is relatively small, nonetheless we attempted to aim as much as possible at a closure of the lexicon by coding most of the single word senses used as target SemUs of the relations filling in the Qualia roles. However, some relations are still opened since they point to dummy entries.

In the SIMPLE lexicon, dummy elements are of three types:

• single word senses described at syntactic level, but whose semantic encoding would go beyond the threshold of 10,000 entries foreseen by the SIMPLE contract;
• single word senses that do not exist in PAROLE lexicon and therefore cannot be semantically encoded;
• a few MWUs, such as 'cognitive fact' or 'unit of measurement' that, in the Specification phase, we felt the need to allow as prototypical values of target SemUs, in some template types.

As for the Italian lexicon, the problem of dummy entries will be overcome soon since an extension of PAROLE and SIMPLE lexica is foreseen in the Italian National Project CLIPS that aims at building a large Italian lexical database.

The set of words to be encoded at semantic level was selected among the PAROLE lexicon entries, according to their frequency in the PAROLE corpus. This selection was performed in the following way.

Using an automatic procedure^, PAROLE non frame-bearing lexical entries were extracted on the basis of key words appearing in their definitions. Those key words correspond to prototypical target SemUs of the formal quale in SIMPLE template types. For example, entries whose definition had ramo, dominio, branca, disciplina (field, branch, discipline) as genus term were candidate SemUs for the template Domain; malattia, affezione (disease, affection), for the template Disease, etc.

As to argument-bearing words, they were searched out in two different ways. In the ILC-DMI^, according to key words occurring in their definitions; in PAROLE lexicon — where frame-bearing entries are assigned no definition but rather an example of use —, according to their syntactic descriptions. Hence, for example, for quality denoting words, we searched for the description identifier of mass nouns subcategorizing for an optional 'of_pp', while for feeling denoting nouns we looked for identifiers of deverbal nouns subcategorizing for an optional 'of_pp' (corresponding to the verb subject) and an optional 'for_pp'. Within the redundant set of entries obtained, the identification of quality or feeling denoting nouns was then quite easy.

In an effort towards a completeness of entries, we decided to encoded the main readings of each lexical unit selected. For each word of the coding list, reading distinction was therefore determined on the basis of meaning differences and their syntactic descriptions were studied in order to establish the appropriate link between syntactic and semantic units. As a general rule, we tried to deal with all members of derivation paradigms, e.g.: aggredire, aggressore, aggressione (to mug, mugger, mugging), provided they were encoded at syntactic level.

The 10,037 senses encoded correspond to 7,285 lemmas, which means an average number of 1,38 reading distinctions per lemma.

Focussing on the PAROLE lexicon from a semantic perspective has sometimes led us to revise it, either for inserting BCs entries, for cancelling, adding or adjusting syntactic descriptions or to make uniform the syntactic description of words whose clustering in a semantic class evidenced a similar behaviour.

1. Dealing with the Ontology

The SIMPLE Semantic Type System consists of a Core Ontology, whose use is mandatory and a Recommended one, which is optional.

The Core Ontology consists of the hierarchy upper and general types that meet a large consensus across languages and provide the most essential information for describing word senses. The Recommended Ontology consists of the hierarchy lower and specific types that clearly provide more granular information about word meaning.

For encoding the Italian lexicon, we chose to use the whole Ontology which consists of a set of 153 semantic types (Appendix A), and tried to balance the population of each type. It has been obviously easier to retrieve in the PAROLE lexicon meanings fitting in some kinds of semantic types rather than other ones. For example, there was clearly no problem for identifying nouns in order to fill Animal, Human, or Instrument templates, and indeed only the most frequent ones were sorted out. On the other hand, top templates such as Telic — used to encode very underspecified non-concrete nouns which only convey a Telic dimension, e.g.: scopo (goal) — or Entity, Concrete_Entity, Representation, Act or Change which subsume more specific types, were used for the coding of a restricted set of word senses. We endeavoured in fact to use the most specific type whenever possible since this allowed us to provide more granular information.

Since lexicographer's subjectivity is a reality that cannot be ignored / disregarded in a lexicon building process, each lexicographer was assigned a given portion of the Ontology in order to ensure that word senses belonging to a particular semantic area were described according to the same approach and interpretation. Besides, coding systematically sets of word senses belonging to the same semantic type guarantees somehow the consistency of coding. In this way, synonyms and near synonyms are encoded in a very similar way and target SemUs are used more consistently, e.g.: in order to avoid a proliferation of synonyms, the verb fabbricare (to build) was chosen as prototypical target SemU in the Agentive relation 'created_by', for all instrument denoting nouns.

The coding of a selected area of the lexicon, say Living entities, Artifacts, Properties, or Change denoting senses, always started with the description of word meanings belonging to top types. This allowed us to have at once at our disposal, as existing entries, those more generic words that would then be used as targets of the Formal relation throughout the template population. In this way, we avoided an undesirable creation of dummies words. Similarly, when dealing with adjectives, whereby the formal quale is expressed through an antonymic relation, antonym adjectives were encoded in a sequential way in order to immediately turn dummy links into real ones.

In the Italian SIMPLE lexicon the coding of entries was performed using the encoding tool supplied by the Catalan site. This tool, whose 1st version was delivered in January 1999, is an interface to encode/check/browse the Simple data, stored in a relational database (MSAccess). It has been created by Marta Villegas and Teresa Sadurní and developed by Teresa Sadurní at the Institut d'Estudis Catalans (IEC), in Barcelona. This tool has provided a most valuable help for the encoding process. Its great number of very useful options for inserting entries, copying and maintaining existing data has allowed to perform an accurate and quick coding of entries and a continuous consistency checking of data.

In the following, the different steps of the encoding of a semantic entry will be explained and illustrated by means of the relevant SGML objects.

For a deeper insight into the SIMPLE model and any related theoretical issue, the reader is referred to SIMPLE Linguistic Specifications. Let us only say here that in SIMPLE lexical entries, word meaning is described by means of two descriptive objects:

• valued features
• relations between SemUs

Valued features are expressed through the SGML objects 'WeightValSemFeature' and Relations through 'RWeightValSemU' objects. The weight of these objects may be either 'Prototypical', for type defining information, i.e. the information that intrinsically characterizes a semantic type, or 'Essential' for optional information, i.e. the one that is not crucial to define a semantic type but rather provides information about lexical units.

In the Italian lexicon, all entries are described by means of both descriptive objects. A total set of 1001 features (Appendix B) and 96 relations (Appendix C) were used.

Every semantic entry is linked to (at least) one syntactic one. This linking is formally expressed in the Correspondence object ‘CorrespSynUSemU’ that allows to relate syntactic and semantic layers. The correspondence object is embedded in the representation of the SynU. The syntax-semantic links may be of different types:

• one-to-one link between syntactic and semantic units, this is the prototypical case;

• one-to-many link: one SynU is linked to more than one sense; this is the case when two semantic units share the same syntactic behaviour. This type of link has been used in two different cases: (1) polysemy, e.g.: cimice (bug (insect); thumbtack; bug (electronics)) has one syntactic entry which clearly gives rise to different semantic units; (2) the same entity is described from different perspectives, e.g.: 'book' is encoded under two different semantic types: Information, to describe the book content and Semiotic_artifact, for the object. In both of the above cases, the semantic entries point to a unique SynU and the CorrespSynUSemU object is instantiated as many times as necessary;

targetsemu="USem4046"> <!-- Semiotic_artifact reading -->

• many-to-one link: one SemU points to different SynUs, this is the case when different syntactic descriptions of a morphological unit convey the same semantic meaning, e.g.: the adjective adatto (
• adequate) has different syntactic entries according to the nature (phrasal or clausal) of its complement and according to the preposition introducing it, i.e.: adatto a or adatto per but none of these differences implies a change of meaning. Hence, all these SynUs point to a unique SemU.

Besides the linking of entries of the two description levels, the linking of semantic arguments of predicative entries to syntactic positions is performed through the values of the feature 'Correspondence'. Note that some positions may however have no corresponding arguments and some arguments may not be linked to any syntactic position. In the Italian lexicon, the ‘Correspondence’ feature is assigned to all verbs, to predicative nouns — either deverbal or simple ones — and to frame bearing adjectives.

The types of correspondence values that were used in the Italian lexicon are:

• 'isomorphic', when all syntactic positions map onto semantic arguments, in the same position order. Isomorphic links may be monovalent, bivalent, trivalent and tetravalent, according to the lexical units’ arity. This type of link has been used in general for verbs, simple predicative nouns and adjectives;
• 'crossed', when the arity is the same at both description levels but the order of positions and arguments is different. As isomorphic links, crossed links may involve up to four arguments. This type of link has been used for deverbal nouns where, to take the simplest case, the first noun argument corresponds to the base verb second position and the second noun argument is linked to the verb subject;

• 'augmented', when a semantic entry requires some arguments that are not considered as complements in syntax. This type of link has been used for some instruments that do not appear as complements in syntax, e.g. to ski with skis, to box in a box;

• 'reduced', when a syntactic complement is not deemed to be a semantic argument. This value has also been used when a SemU is linked to several SynUs with different frames: in this case, the main correspondence is established with the SynU bearing the largest frame and the other SynUs are assigned a 'reduced' correspondence, as can be observed in the above example of the adjective adatto.

A lexicographic gloss, inspired from Italian medium size dictionary definitions, was assigned to each semantic entry. For most of them, an example of use was provided as well.

In the Italian lexicon, template type assignment was performed taking into account not only the Core but also the Recommended SIMPLE Ontology, which provides a more granular structuring of information (Appendix A).

Template type assignment was decided only after the distinction of readings was established. Template type is assigned according to the semantic type a word sense belongs to. Templates consist in fact of a cluster of structured information, among which the semantic type. Since templates are organized in a hierarchical structure, template type assignment amounts to scan a selected area of the hierarchy for choosing and instantiating the template which provides the most adequate kind and amount of information necessary to both define the semantics of a given word sense and discriminate among other possible senses of the same lexical item.

Following the Generative Lexicon Theory, the SIMPLE model is based on the assumption that lexical units differ as to the degree of complexity their semantics conveys. The Generative Lexicon allows to provide a uniform representation of lemmas of heterogeneous complexity. As a matter of fact, some word senses can be exhaustively characterized in terms of a monodimensional, taxonomic relation to other lexical units. This is the case of words such as luogo (location), defined as a type of concrete entity; uccello (bird), a type of animal; virus (virus), a type of living entity; udito (hearing), a type of physical property; disciplina (discipline), a type of abstract entity; fenomeno (phenomenon) or cerimonia (ceremony), a type of event, etc. These word meanings are assigned simple types.

On the other hand, word senses denoting a more complex bundle of information, whose meaning consists of orthogonal dimensions and cannot be captured by a mere subtype relation, are assigned unified, i.e. multidimensional types. This is for example the case of all words denoting artifacts: their characterization as types of concrete entities can in no way be deemed sufficient. They inherit their constitutive properties from different semantic types (orthogonal inheritance): they are concrete entities, intentionally created by some human process, for a certain purpose. Only by taking into account all of these meaning dimensions can one provide an adequate description of their semantic content.

While for trivial cases, template assignment has been merely based on world knowledge, for more complex cases, a parsing of definitions has pointed out how the elements of meaning generally map quite easily on the dimension(s) expressed via qualia roles. This highlights the adequacy of qualia relations for capturing key aspects of word meaning, especially for nouns, as illustrated in the table below. Such a mapping has in some cases guided the selection of the most adequate template type.

Note that those dimensions that are not explicitly expressed in the definition of a word meaning are retrievable since they are inherited by virtue of its membership to a semantic type, as shown in the table below.

Clearly, template type assignment has not been an easy task for all word senses considered. The selection of the most suitable type has been sometimes quite awkward and the resulting choice may be debatable. Would for example materiale (material) be better encoded in the template Material or ¾ considering the underspecified genus part of its definition (everything which serves for creating or building something) ¾ rather in the Telic top type?

More than for nouns, some difficulty in assigning the adequate template type has sometimes been encountered for verbs and for adjectives.

From the practical point of view of coding, note that assigning a semantic type to an entry implies letting it inherit another information, i.e. the position of the type within the whole hierarchy. This information is provided by means of one of the two features: WVSFTemplateSuperTypeXXXPROT (for Simple types) or WVSFUnificationPathXXX-YYY-ZZZPROT (for Unified types).

The assignment of a semantic class to SIMPLE entries is meant to provide a mapping between SIMPLE's ontology that encompasses both monodimensional and multidimensional types and LEXIQUEST's monodimensional organization of semantic types.

In a relevant number of cases, SIMPLE types and LEXIQUEST's semantic classes for nouns coincide, e.g.: Cognitive_fact, Vehicle, Container, Amount, Number, even though the label sometimes slightly differs, e.g.: Mouvement_of_thought vs. System of thought, Unit_of _measurement vs. Measure_unit, Quality vs. Attribute, People vs. Ethnos, Human_group vs. Human, Institution vs. Agency, Abstract_entity vs. Abstract, Psych_property vs. Psychological_feature, etc.

In some cases, different LEXIQUEST's labels correspond to a unique SIMPLE type and a choice had thus to be made:

• This is the case for the entries encoded in the template Human, which are assigned both 'Bio' and 'Situ' semantic types to characterize human beings according to, respectively, a biological characteristic, e.g. uomo, donna, bambino (man, woman, child) or a physical, mental, behavioural or situational distinctive feature, e.g.: acciuga, aquila, delfino, pescecane (anchovy, eagle, dolphin, shark);
• entries encoded in the semantic type Water_animal are ascribed different semantic classes, i.e. 'Mammal' for delfino (dolphin); 'Reptile' for coccodrillo (crocodile), 'Mollusc' for ostrica (oyster), 'Fish' for sogliola (sole), 'Amphibian' for rana (frog);
• 'Time_period', 'Period', 'Month', 'Day' semantic classes provide a further differentiation among entries such as vendemmia (vintage time), infanzia (childhood), marzo (March), martedi' (Tuesday), all encoded in the template Time;
• 'Illness' used for e.g.: morbillo (measles) and 'Affection' for asma (asthma) differentiate entries encoded in the type Disease;
• 'Shrub', 'Tree', and 'Mushroom' distinguish the ones which are assigned the type Plant;
• entries encoded in the template Instrument are ascribed as semantic class either 'Instrument' or 'Apparatus', according to the different value assigned to their ‘isa’ relation, or 'Musical_instrument' on the basis of the target SemU filling the Telic relation;

It is worth noting that in the Italian Lexicon, the use of different semantic classes for SemUs encoded in a same template generally corresponds to a virtual subtyping which is in fact indicated by a different hyperonymic relation (see below Instrument).

Conversely, a single semantic class was sometimes linked to a number of SIMPLE types:

• 'Substance' was assigned to entities encoded in Substance, Natural_substance, Substance_food, Food, Flavouring, Drink, Artifactual_drink and Concrete_entity;
• 'Abstract' to Abstract_entity, Telic, Agentive, Cause, Part, Group, Representation, Convention, Information, Language, Sign, and Social_property;
• 'Attribute' was used for entries encoded in Quality, Physical_property and Physical_power

For verbs, the 15 semantic classes provided by LexiQuest proved to be insufficient. These classes were assigned to all relevant verb entries: 'Motion' to entries encoded in Move, Cause_Motion, Cause_change_of_location, 'Emotion' to Psychological_Event, Experience_event, Cause_experience_event; 'Change' to all Change and Cause_Change types, etc. but a few verb entries still miss semantic class information.

As for adjectives, the semantic classes of nouns were assigned, wherever possible. For other adjectives, according to the Project Specifications, the use of meaning components in the Constitutive Role is considered to make up for the lack of specific semantic classes and to provide equivalent information.

Domain information is to be selected among the elements of LexiQuest's domain list and is meant to inform about the topic of texts in which the SemU at hand is more likely to appear. Strangely enough, the assignment of the domain information has not been as straightforward as it could appear first.

In compliance with the Project Guidelines, no specific feature has been selected for common or unclassifiable word senses, which amounted to assigning the domain 'General'.

For word senses which may occur in texts dealing of different topics, different domains have been selected such as: 'Manufacturing_Industry', 'Craft_Industry', 'Service_Industry', 'Construction' for operaio (worker); 'Banking', 'Commerce', 'Economics' for banconota (banknote). Note that, since multiple choices were not allowed in the previous version of the tool, the very first set of encoded word senses may still need to undergo a revision in this regard.

For a quite relevant number of readings, the necessity of assigning the domain 'General' besides (a) more specific one(s) was felt. Since a domain 'General' does not exist in the LexiQuest's domain list and the assignment of such a value is only a default one, there is no possibility to distinguish between those entries which were assigned specific domains only and those that were meant to pertain to a 'General' domain besides (a) specific one(s). Therefore, for the time being, such a 'General' domain is to be intended as assigned by default to all SemUs in the Italian Lexicon. This provisional solution is only acceptable given the relatively restricted number of lemmas encoded in the framework of this project. SIMPLE's lexicon consists in fact of a majority of lexical units denoting meanings that may be found in general texts and of a very small number of word senses pertaining to specific domains exclusively. Should the SIMPLE lexicon be extended with domain specific terms, a solution to this problem would be crucially needed.

As recommended in the Project Guidelines, the most specific domain value has always been selected, hence 'Islam', rather than 'Religion' for the SemU moschea (mosque); 'Cuisine' rather than 'Food' for arrosto (roast); 'Biochemistry' rather than 'Chemistry' for proteina (protein).

Domain information is sometimes a relevant element of sense discrimination. Consider the coding of the word console (consul), a term which denotes both a diplomat and an authority in ancient Rome. The two senses are encoded in the template type Social_status and are distinguished by three elements: i) the lexicographic gloss, ii) the target SemUs of Formal and Constitutive roles, iii) the domain value 'Diplomacy' vs. 'Politics_and_government' and 'Antiquity'. The same holds for pasta (dough, pastry and pasta) in Artifact_food: the 'dough' and 'pastry' senses are assigned the domain value 'Bakery' while 'pasta' is assigned the value 'Food'.

Another example is colletto whose three meanings (collar of a dress/suit; collar of a plant; neck of a tooth) are all encoded in the template Part and are respectively assigned 'Clothing_Industry' and 'Fashion'; 'Botanics'; and 'Dentistry'.

Domain information has been much less assigned to verbs than to nouns because of the highly versatile nature of verbs. Domain values have been ascribed to specific senses like e.g.: suonare (to play) 'Music'; imprigionare (to jail) 'Penal_system'; esportare, importare (to export, to import) 'Business'; navigare (to sail) 'Sea_transport'; friggere (to fry) 'Cuisine'; convertire (to convert) 'Religion'; sposare (to marry) 'Marriage'; sceneggiare (to dramatize) 'Film', 'Theater'.

No Domain Information has been assigned to adjectives.

Some semantic features have been assigned with a view to easing the retrieval of entries that are not encoded under the same semantic type but still share a common feature. This is for example the case of:

• ‘Plus_Ts_Collective_T’, shared by entries belonging to the Constitutive, Institution, Human_group and Group types;
• ‘Plus_Ts_Part_T’, mainly for Building, Instrument, and Time entries, besides the ones belonging to the template Part;
• ‘Plus_Ts_Edible_T’, for Food, Artifact_food, Natural_substance, and Artifactual_drink entries;
• ‘Plus_Ts_Semiotic_T’, for Sign, Language, and Information entries;

The binary feature ‘Connotation’ that captures the 'common sense feeling' about a property or an event has been mostly used for Quality, Experience_event, and Expressive_speech_act typed entries. In a few cases, such optional information proved to be relevant for discrimination purposes, e.g.: for the word evento (event), evento_1 (fact which already occurred or may occur) and evento_2 (event of great relevance) were distinguished, besides the gloss, through the constitutive feature 'connotation=positive' ascribed to the second reading.

The use of other more specific features will be illustrated below in the section that describes the treatment of entries template by template.

In SIMPLE templates, the different dimensions of word meaning are captured in the Extended Qualia structure, which consists of four roles. In the Qualia Structure, the information is expressed mainly in terms of relations between lexical units but also by valued features. Although Qualia Structure information is not mandatory, we attempted to provide the widest range of different types of information which entries may carry by filling in the relevant roles; in the most underspecified entries, Qualia information only consists in the Formal Role relation.

The Formal Role allows to provide a broad characterization of an entity with respect to other entities. Formal quale information, which is expressed by the 'isa' hyperonymic relation for simple nouns and event-denoting entities is deemed quite important in the Italian lexicon since it creates an intermediate level between semantic types and lexical units. In fact, the value of the target SemU of the 'isa' relation gives in most of the cases a more granular information w.r.t. the one provided by the semantic type, and allows a further subtyping of entries sharing the same template, as e.g.: 'isa' mammifero, rettile, felino, pachidermo (mammal, reptile, feline, pachyderm) enables to differentiate entries encoded in Earth_Animal type.

As a general rule, we thus endeavoured to assign the closest hyperonym and to avoid as far as possible circular 'isa' relations.

• Gradable antonym: ‘SRAntonymGrad’, when the adjective encoded is gradable and there exists a range of values between it and its antonym, e.g.: caldo, freddo (hot, cold);
• Complementary antonym: ‘SRAntonymComp’, used in those cases where the adjective and its antonym are complementary, i.e. they exclude each other and there is no value in between, e.g.: continuo, discontinuo; temporaneo, permanente (continuous, discontinuous; temporaneous, permanent);
• Multiple opposition: ‘SRAntonymGradMult’. As a matter of fact, this is not a real antonymic relation, but it seems to be the only way to provide some information for a few classes of adjectives, such as those denoting nationality, style, or colour. The value of this feature is therefore chosen among the other members of the adjective class.

• Constitutive

The Constitutive Role expresses the internal constitution of an entity. Typical constitutive relations which were used are: 'is_a_member_of', 'is_a_part_of', 'has_as_member', 'resulting_state', 'lives_in', 'has_as_property', etc.

Constitutive relations were filled as much as possible. Not only when they were part of the type defining information, as 'is_a_part_of' for the template Part, 'has_as_member' for the templates Group and Human_group, but also to give optional additional information each time it was deemed necessary in order to better grasp and describe the word meaning at hand, provided this didn't implied a proliferation of dummy entries. We used for example the optional information 'constitutive_activity' in the template types and subtypes Animal; 'has_as_part' in Plant, Building, Instrument, Vehicle: 'made of', mostly for Artifact_Material/Food/Drink; 'has_as_colour', for Plant, Fruit, Natural_Substance; 'contains', mainly for Container and Semiotic_Artifact.

A special mention should be made for the constitutive relation 'concerns', which is never type defining but has still been largely used. According to us, it proved in fact to be quite useful in many cases to express some aspects of word meaning that are only present in the lexical gloss and would therefore be lost otherwise. In the template Disease, for example, this relation was used to indicate the organ affected by the disease, whenever possible e.g.: for congiuntivite, occhio (conjunctivitis eye). Similarly, some semantic units typed as Clothing were assigned as target of the 'concerns' relation uomo (man) or donna (woman). Other examples, for sbocciare, fiore; for odore, olfato; for rublo, Russia.

• Agentive

The Agentive Role provides information concerning the origin of an entity. Typical agentive relations which were used are 'created_by', for all kinds of artifacts; 'result_of', used mostly in all templates subsumed by the type Representation; 'caused_by' used to indicate the cause of a stimulus or a disease; 'agentive_prog' in the template Agent_of _temporary_activity to indicate the action which determines the way a person is referred to, e.g.: pedone o scioperante (walker, striker); 'agentive_cause' in all causative templates with prototypical target SemUs such as fare or causare (make, cause); 'agentive_experience', in the Experience_event template with the prototypical targets provare, sentire (to feel).

• Telic

The Telic Role specifies the function of an entity, the purpose for which it exists or has been created. The main Telic relations that have been used are the following ones: 'used_as', mostly in Substance, Natural_substance and Artifactual_material; 'used_for' in Artifact, Building, Substance, Flavouring, Container, Clothing; 'is_the_activity_of' in Profession; 'object_of_the_activity' mostly in Clothing, Fruit, Food and subtypes; 'indirect_telic' in Representation and subtypes; 'telic', mainly in Purpose_act and Institution.

In the Formal role, the target of the hyperonymic relation may be the most adequate or a more general one, as happened for some verbs whose 'isa' target is just agire (to act). In the Constitutive role, the target for type-defining relations is generally easy to identify and, obviously optional information is only provided if a target is indeed identified. Conversely, it may be the case that a word meaning clearly conveys an Agentive or a Telic dimension, that this information is linguistically relevant and yet that its expression is problematic. For the Telic role, this phenomenon may have three causes:

• underspecificity of the function; this happens for top elements of a type, e.g.:

• inadequacy of a lexical unit or MWU to express the dimension, e.g.:

• multiplicity of functions and hence difficulty to express a specific use, e.g.:

Let us consider the specific case of carta. The last part of the definition clearly conveys a Telic information. It is indeniable that the paper has some kind of use and this induces to consider this information as linguistically relevant. However this information is totally underspecified as for a possible value. As a matter of fact, the appropriate Telic relation could be filled with a number of SemUs, such as: scrivere (to write), disegnare (to draw), stampare (to print), incartare (to wrap up in paper), etc., given the large and heterogeneous range of uses that paper may have. Hence, no unique semantic type can be found which could express a generalization over the different functions of carta. On the other hand, defining at lexical level the most prototypical usage of carta would certainly be restrictive, with the consequence that relevant information would be lost. It goes without saying that the awareness of the different possible uses of carta depends on the world knowledge of each individual.

From a pratical point of view, in such cases, the encoding options for similar cases seem to be:

(i) instantiating the role as many times as necessary in order to cover all possible functions of the meaning being described:

but this would be a time-consuming and anyway non exhaustive solution;

(ii) providing a telic information lexically underspecified

On the other hand, how is it possible to express for example the Telic dimension which undeniably exists in promettere (to promise); volere (to want); minacciare (to threaten); intenzione (intention); or the Agentive dimension existing in dimenticare (to forget), rompersi (to break), morire (to die)? Finally, while the target SemU of the Agentive relation for marxismo (Marxism) is obvious, no SemU can be found to express the agentive of socialismo (socialism) and yet this dimension is undoubtedly present in this word meaning.

For all the above problematic cases, we decided to use the features ‘WVSFTelicYesPROT’, ‘WVSFTelicYesESS’, ‘WVSFAgentiveYesPROT’, ‘WVSFAgentiveYesESS’ in order to preserve linguistically relevant information while avoiding to create underspecified or odd relations.

In the Italian lexicon, besides the type-defining information which was always provided, optional relations and features were always filled whenever possible. Note that some information which might be rejected as 'world knowledge only' proves in fact to be linguistically relevant. In the above case, for example the information provided in the 'Constitutive_activity' relation may then be exploited in the selectional restrictions of the corresponding verb arguments, as illustrated in the example below.

naming = "cane"

freedefinition = "mammifero domestico"

weightvalsemfeaturel="TSVP_MAMMAL_TS_classificateur_de_nom_C TSVP_MAMMALOGY_TS_domaine_D WVSFHabitatEarthPROT

WVSFTemplateEarth-AnimalPROT WVSFTemplateSuperTypeAnimalPROT"

Relations:

semr = "SRIsa"

weight = "PROTOTYPICAL"

comment = "mammifero" (Animal)

target = "USem1123"

semr = "SRConstitutiveactivity"

weight = "ESSENTIAL"

comment = "abbaiare" (Non_Relational_Act)

target = "USem6391"

naming = "abbaiare"

freedefinition = "verso del cane"

weightvalsemfeaturel="TSVP_COMMUNICATION_TS_classificateur_de_verbe_C WVSFEventTypeProcessPROT

WVSFTemplateNonRelationalActPROT WVSFTemplateSuperTypeActPROT"

Predicative Representation:

predicate = "PREDabbaiare#1"

typeoflink = "Master"

Predicates:

id = "PREDabbaiare#1"

naming = "abbaiare#1"

type = "LEXICAL"

multilingual = No

argumentl="ARG0abbaiare#1"

Arguments:

id = "ARG0abbaiare#1"

semanticrolel = "Role_ProtoAgent"

informargl = "INFARGS1"

InformArg:

id = "INFARGS1"

semu = "USem1915

Relations:

semr = "SRIsa"

weight = "PROTOTYPICAL"

comment = "verso" (Non_Relational_Act)

target = "USem6386"

semr = "SRTypicalof"

weight = "PROTOTYPICAL"

comment = "cane" (Earth_animal)

target = "USem1915"

Different senses (encoded in different templates) of polysemous lexical items belonging to regular polysemous classes were linked to each other using the relation ‘SRPolysemyX-Y’, where X and Y are two template types, e.g.:

id = "USem3980"

naming = "aumentare"

comment = "BC 10"

freedefinition = "rendere più grande, più intenso, più numeroso; accrescere"

weight = "ESSENTIAL"

comment = "aumentare"

target = "USem3981"

semr = "SRPolysemyChangeofvalue&Causechangeofvalue"> ...

id = "USem3981"

naming = "aumentare"

example = "la popolazione è aumentata del 10 %"

weight = "ESSENTIAL"

comment = "aumentare"

target = "USem3980"

semr = "SRPolysemyChangeofvalue&Causechangeofvalue">....

The following polysemic relations are encoded in the Italian lexicon for abstract and concrete nouns (table 4) and for adjectives and event-denoting lexical units (table5):

Polysemous Class	Examples	Related templates
Activity-Profession	musicista (musician)	[Agent_of_ persistent _activity] [Profession]
Animal-Food	agnello (lamb)	[Animal] [Substance_Food] [Air-Animal] [Substance_Food] [Earth-Animal] [Substance_Food] [Water-Animal] [Substance_Food]
Animal-Fur	volpe (fox)	[Animal] [Artifactual_material] [Air-Animal] [Artifactual_material] [Earth-Animal] [Artifactual_material] [Water-Animal] [Artifactual_material]
Artifact-Information	libro (book)	[Semiotic_artifact] [Information]
Convention-Artifact	contratto (contract)	[Convention] [Semiotic_artifact]
Building-Institution	scuola (school)	[Building] [Institution]
Figure-Ground	finestra (window)	[Opening] [Artifact]
Container-Content	scatola (box)	[Container] [Amount]
Substance-Color: Flower-Colour	turchese (turquoise) viola (violet)	[Natural_substance] [Colour] [Flower] [Colour]
People-Institution	chiesa (church)	[Human_Group] [Institution]
People-Language	italiano (Italian)	[People][Language]
Place-People: Organization-Location	citta' (city) giornale (newspaper)	[Location] [Human_group] [Area] [Human_group] [Geopolitical_Location] [Human_Group] [Building] [Human_Group]
Producer-Product: Plant-Fruit Plant-Flower	limone (lemon tree/lemon) violetta (violet)	[Plant] [Fruit] [Plant] [Flower]
Plant-Spice	pepe (pepper)	[Plant] [Flavouring]
Tree-Wood	noce (walnut tree/walnut)	[Plant] [Natural_substance]
Plant-Drink	caffè (coffee /coffee)	[Plant] [Artifactual_drink]

Polysemous Class	Examples	Related templates
Inchoative-Causative	cominciare (to begin)	[Aspectual] [Cause_aspectual]
Inchoative-Causative	suonare (to ring)	[Causeact] [Nonrelational_act]
Inchoative-Causative	trasformare (to transform)	[Cause_change] [Change]
Inchoative-Causative	asciugare (to dry)	[Change_of_state] [Cause_change_of_state]
Inchoative-Causative	diminuire (decrease)	[Change_of_value] [Cause_change_of_value]
Inchoative-Causative	attaccare (to stick)	[Constitutive_change] [Cause_constitutive_change]
Inchoative-Causative	angosciare (to grieve at st.; to anguish)	[Experience_Event] [Cause_Experience_Event]
Inchoative-Causative	rotolare (to roll)	[Move] [Cause_motion]
Inchoative-Causative	collegare (to link)	[Relational_change] [Cause_relational_change]
Inchoative-Causative	temere (to fear)	[Cognitive_event] [Experience_event]
	italiano (Italian)	[Nationality] [Style]
	freddo (cold)	[Temperature] [Behaviour]

Derivation was marked by means of the following relations:

• SRDerivational, for all deverbal and denominal adjectives, e.g.: leggibile, leggere (readable, to read); acquatico, acqua (acquatic, water);
• SRNominalization, for building, location or instrument denoting deverbal nouns , e.g.: osservatorio, osservare (observatory; to observe);
• SRNounadjective for deadjectival nouns, e.g.: ampiezza, ampio (largeness, large)
• SRNounnoun for denominal nouns, e.g.: tabaccaio, tabacco (tobacconist, tobacco)
• SRNounPropernoun, e.g.: Marxismo, Marx
• SRDenominalNounVerb, for nouns derived from verbs, e.g.: tassa, tassare (tax, to tax) ; gioco, giocare (game, to play);
• SRDenominalVerbNoun, for verbs derived from nouns, e.g.: pattinare (to skate);
• SRInstrumentVerb, for verbs derived from instrument denoting nouns, e.g.: inchiodare, chiodo (to nail, a nail);
• SRAgentVerb, for nominalizations of verb subjects, e.g.: viaggiatore, viaggiare (traveller, to travel);
• SRPatientVerb, for nominalizations of verb objects, e.g.: accusato, accusare (accused, to accuse);
• SRStateverb, for nominalizations of State verbs, which are mostly encoded in Experience_event and Cause_experience_event, e.g.: amore, amare (love, to love); umiliazione, umiliare (humiliation, to humiliate);
• SREventVerb, for nominalizations of Event verbs, e.g.: acquisto, acquistare (a purchase, to purchase);
• SRProcessVerb, for nominalizations of Process verbs, e.g.: conoscenza, conoscere (knowledge, to know);

Synonymic relations were assigned in two cases:

• for those SemUs encoded in top templates and which cannot be assigned a formal relation, e.g.: parte (part), scopo (goal), mezzo (means), maniera (manner), etc.
• for adjectives, especially in case of polysemous ones, synonyms provide a further means of sense discrimination, e.g.: povero - syn.: scarso; povero - syn.: carente; povero – syn.: insufficiente (poor – lean / lacking in / insufficient)

Predicative entries are assigned a predicative representation which consists in the assignment of a predicate, the type of link the entry holds with the predicate and the description of the arguments: predicate’s arity, semantic role of each argument and selectional restrictions.

Each predicative SemU, be it verb, deverbal, deadjectival or simple noun, is assigned one lexical predicate. A total number of 2754 predicates were created in the Italian lexicon.

For verbs, predicate names coincide with the SemU naming, e.g.: SemUandare ó Predandare. As to deverbal nouns, they share with their verbal base the same predicate, i.e. accusare, accusatore, accusato, accusa (to accuse, accuser, accused, accusation) all point to the predicate accusare, be they encoded in the same semantic type or not. By contrast, polysemic entries of a verb may give rise to different predicates if they have a different arity — this is the case of inchoative and causative readings of verbs which point to two different predicates, a monovalent and a bivalent one — or even only different selectional restrictions on arguments.

The link the SemU holds with the predicate is expressed through the feature ‘typeoflink’. In the Italian lexicon, a predicative representation has been assigned to the following classes with the instantiation of the following links:

• SemUs that have the closest relation to the predicate are assigned the value ‘Master’. This is the case of all verb SemUs, whereas verb nominalizations are assigned different values depending on the part of the verbal argument structure which is absorbed in the nominalization process;

• Event predicative nouns such as insegnamento, trasformazione, miglioramento (teaching, transformation, improvement), which meaning denotes the whole predicate, are related to the corresponding verb predicate through the 'VerbNominalization' link or through more precise types of links such as 'EventNominalization'; 'ProcessNominalization' and 'StateNominalization'.

• Nomina Agentis, which are typed as Agent_of_temporary_activity, Agent_of_permanent_activity or Profession are linked to the corresponding verb through the 'AgentNominalization' link, no matter whether in syntax they bear a complement corresponding to the verb object, e.g.: spacciatore, venditore (dealer, seller); or whether they do not bear any argument such as viaggiatore, sognatore (traveller, dreamer) which are nominalizations of intransitive or pronominal verbs.

• Object nominalizations, as impiegato (employee) are assigned the ‘PatientNominalization’ value;

• Deverbal instrument denoting nouns, such as contenitore (container) are related to the corresponding verb through the ‘InstrumentNominalization’ value;

Beside for verbs, the type of link 'Master' was used for the following classes of predicative non-deverbal nouns:

• Containers in the Amount reading, e.g. scatola di cioccolatini (chocolate box) as well as SemUs encoded as Units_of_measurement, e.g. metro, litro (metre, litre). The unique argument of the predicate has as semantic role: Role_Headquantified.

• Kinship nouns, e.g.: madre, figlio (mother, son) have their own predicate. The argument is typed as Role_Kinship and is restricted to a member of the Human template.

• Part and Group typed nouns as well are assigned a predicate that corresponds to the SemU.

• A special mention is to be made for property denoting deadjectival nouns such as bellezza, bruttezza, dolcezza, intelligenza (beauty, ugliness, sweetness, intelligence). In the Italian semantic lexicon, deadjectival nouns are not assigned the ‘AdjectiveNominalization’ type of link since in the PAROLE syntactic lexicon Italian adjectives do not bear internal arguments. All deadjectival nouns are therefore considered as ‘Master’, i.e.: they are linked to a predicate which corresponds to the naming of the noun at hand. Those predicates have one optional argument which corresponds to the entity to which the quality applies, e.g.: la larghezza della strada, l'intelligenza di Luca (the width of the street, Luca’s intelligence). The information concerning their derivational link is however preserved through the derivational relation ‘NounAdjective’.

The third part of the predicative representation concerns the description of predicate arguments. Each semantic argument is assigned a semantic role. ‘ProtoAgent’ was assigned to verb subjects, provided the subject was not felt as undergoing passively the event; ‘ProtoPatient’ to verb objects, some verb subjects and strongly bound PPs; ‘Role_2Participant’ to indirect objects; ‘Role_SOA_ARG’ to clausal complements; ‘Role_Location’, ‘Role_Direction’ and ‘Role_Origin’ to complements of stative location or movement verbs; ‘Role_Kinship’ to all SemUs encoded under the Kinship type; ‘Role_HeadQuantified for amount denoting nouns.

Restrictions on arguments are clearly not to be taken as real restrictions but rather as preferences of combinations, in prototypical situations. The SIMPLE model offers three possibilities to semantically restrict arguments:

• ‘Notions’, which are clusters of restrictions, either two semantic types, e.g.: ‘MaterialSubstance’ which includes Material and Substance types; a semantic type plus a feature, e.g. 'Animate': type Animal, feature Plus_HUMAN;

• Template types, restricting thus the argument to a SemUs encoded under this semantic type;
• Semantic classes;
• Semantic features, as e.g. PLUS_HUMAN;
• SemUs; this last means holds especially for shadow arguments, e.g. pattini (skates) for the verb pattinare (to skate) and for a few entries for which one argument slot can only be filled by a specific lexical unit.

Going through the SIMPLE ontology, we comment in the following some relevant points concerning the typing of entries which is performed in the Italian lexicon.

The top type Entity has been used to encode a few very abstract word meanings such as Dio, entita', cosa, spirito (God, entity, thing, spirit). For such senses, the information provided consists, as for all SemUs, of type hierarchy, domain, semantic class and, as far as qualia structure is concerned, of a generic isa relation in the formal quale.

Very underspecified non-concrete nouns, not easy to formalize from a semantic point of view, such as scopo, obiettivo (goal, objective) which only convey a bare Telic dimension; or origine, causa, motivo (origin, cause, motive) etc. which lexically instantiate the Agentive quale; or parte, elemento, modo, maniera (part, element, way) which are intrinsically Constitutive are encoded respectively in the top types Telic, Agentive and Constitutive. For such word senses - defined in dictionaries either by means of underspecified genus terms, e.g.: scopo: " cio' a cui si tende, che si desidera ottenere" (something you hope to achieve) or by synonymy - a taxonomic information obviously does not make any sense. We therefore encode a relation in the qualia dimension their meaning instantiates and, whenever possible, a synonymic relation.

Prototypical predicative entries denoting 'parts' and 'groups' are encoded in the Constitutive type. For those entries, the selectional restriction on the argument is the loosest one (Entity).

On the other hand, word senses which are perceived more as part of some entity rather than as autonomous units are encoded as Part members. This kind of perception is sometimes quite subjective. While a consensus would probably be found regarding membrana (membrane) as 'part of a cell', what about carburatore (carburettor): is it perceived more as 'part of an engine' or as 'apparatus'? This is the reason why, in the Linguistic Specifications, freedom was left to the partners to add the semantic relation 'is_a_part_of' as additional information to describe SemUs of other semantic types. In the Italian Lexicon, this relation was used in a number of types such as Artifact, Instrument, Building, Opening, Natural_substance, Time, Unit_of_measurement, Money, etc. Besides, all entries encoded in the template Part or bearing the relation ‘is_a_part_of’ are assigned the semantic feature ‘Plus_Ts_Part_T’ and can therefore be automatically retrieved.

SemUs denoting body parts are encoded in the specific template type which is linked to the semantic class 'Body_part'. An optional 'indirect_telic' relation allows to express the functionality of organs, e.g.: occhio (eye) ‘indirect_telic’ vedere (to see).

The type Group is assigned to those words whose meaning denotes a collection of any kind of entities (except humans, which have a more specific collocation in the type Human_group) e.g.: collezione, stormo, mandria, costellazione, collezione, attrezzatura, equipaggiamento (collection, flock, herd, constellation, equipment, outfit). Most of these units are predicative ones. Their semantic characterization differs as to semantic class, domain, target of the Constitutive type-defining relation 'has_as_member' and consequently, selectional restrictions.

The type Amount is assigned to quantity denoting word readings. The PPdi (of) complement of all the entries typed as Amount is either a mass noun or the plural form of a count noun. Besides prototypical lexical units indicating a quantity, e.g. quantita', grado (quantity, degree), a relevant number of SemUs encoded in this template consists of the content reading of container denoting nouns, i.e. un cucchiaio di sale, una bottiglia di vino, una scatola di cioccolatini (a spoonful of salt, a bottle of wine, a chocolate box). In this case, a specific polysemic relation links the two entries:

The top type Location encodes general words denoting places, such as luogo, posto, localita' (location, place, locality) and has no type defining relation besides the Formal one.

Specific simple subtypes, on the other hand, allow to encode further type of information for natural locations, i.e. tridimensionality for mare, montagna, rilievo, altura (sea, mountain, natural elevation) in 3_D_location; bidimensionality, for spiaggia, campo (beach, field) in Area. Geopolitical_location, where proper nouns such as Italia, Milano, and common nouns referring to geopolitical locations, e.g.: nazione, citta', paese, quartiere (nation, town, village, quarter) are described. Common nouns are polysemous with the corresponding Human_group reading.

Beside simple types, Location subsumes also three unified types.

Opening allows to represent the agentive dimension of word meanings such as buco, tunnel (hole, tunnel). Some of the entries encoded in this template e.g.: finestra, porta (window, door) show a polysemic relation with their corresponding artifact reading.

In Building and Artifactual_area types, both Agentive and Telic dimensions are expressed. An interesting feature of some building-typed entries is their polysemic relation with another reading, e.g.: casa (house/home) Building-Human_group; ditta (company) Building-Institution, or even with both of them, e.g.: scuola, banca, chiesa, parlamento (school, bank, church, parliament).

Artifactual_area encodes entries referring to areas or surfaces which have been intentionally created, e.g. piazza, autostrada, percorso, strada (square, highway, course, route).

Lexical items belonging to this class are entities of different types which are used as material and are underspecified with respect to both their natural/artifactual nature and composition. The qualia structure of the unified type Material instantiates the Formal and Telic dimensions. The target SemU of the isa relation is the SemU materiale (material) and the distinctive feature of the class components is provided by the target of their Telic relation, i.e.: imbottire, rivestire, ricoprire (to fill, to cover, to line). Only a few entries are encoded in this template since those materials which are specified for their artifactual nature and composition are collocated in the more specific template Artifactual_material, and those which are derived from natural substances, e.g.: argento (silver) are encoded in the template Natural_substance, which is also optionally specified for the Telic role.

Except for mattone (brick), the SemUs typed as Artifactual_material are all mass nouns. In this template, two relevant dimensions of word sense are highlighted: the Agentive and the Telic ones. The target SemU of the Agentive relation 'created_by', i.e.: lavorazione, fusione, raffinazione, conciare, cuocere (working, melting, refining, to tan, to cook) provides information about the process through which artifactual materials such as polistirolo, ottone, benzina, coccodrillo, porcellana are obtained. Moreover, an additional optional Agentive relation 'derived_from' informs, whenever possible, on the composition of the derived products, e.g.: benzina ¬ petrolio; carta ¬ cellulosa; bambagia ¬ cotone (gasoline, oil; paper, cellulose; cotton wool, cotton).

The Telic dimension is expressed by the relations 'used_for' and 'used_as'. The latter has a generic target materiale (material) unless more specific uses may be indicated, e.g.: for benzina: solvente and carburante (gasoline: solvent, fuel); for kerosene: combustibile (kerosene, fuel). The relation 'used_for' is filled in a number of cases with the generic verb fabbricare (to fabricate). For other words, it has been possible to provide more precise indication on their use, e.g.: calcestruzzo, cemento, mattone: costruire (concrete, cement, brick: to build); catrame: rivestire (tar, to cover); collante: incollare (glue, to glue) .

Note that some entries encoded in the template Artifactual_material, e.g.: coccodrillo, lucertola, tartaruga, visone (crocodile, lizard, tortoise, mink) display a polysemic relation with the corresponding reading encoded in Animal (or its subtypes).

The top type Artifact subsumes a number of subtypes as Artwork, Instrument, Vehicle, Container, Clothing, Money, Furniture, Semiotic_artifact, and the one already commented Artifactual_material. As for all top types which subsume more informative subtypes, Artifact includes only a few members, i.e. words denoting broadly artifacts (most of them are synonyms) and representing the top of the taxonomy, e.g. manufatto, strumento, utensile, apparecchio, dispositivo, arnese, attrezzo, macchina (artifact, instrument, tool, apparatus, device, tool, machine). For these word senses, Formal, Agentive and Telic relations are filled in with the most generic target SemUs. They are defined as hyponyms of manufatto, (which is itself defined as a kind of entity), the Agentive relation is generically expressed by the verb fabbricare (to fabricate) and the Telic dimension is, in most of the cases, provided by the Telic feature ‘WVSFTelicYesPROT’.

Artwork is the only subtype of Artifact lacking a type defining Telic quale. A Telic relation - as well as a Constitutive one - may however be added, as optional information, as was done for dramma (drama).

A virtual subtyping of the type Instrument is possible by means of the hyperonymic relation encoded in the Formal role. In the Italian Lexicon, the 'isa' relation has in fact allowed to create an intermediate level between types and lexical units. For this purpose, we relied on dictionary definitions and their taxonomical partition. Thus, instruments are sub classified as:

• attrezzo, e.g.: parallela, trapezio, vogatore, falce, forca, piccozza, tenaglia;

(tool) (parallel bars, trapeze, rowing-machine, scythe, fork, axe, pincers)

• utensile, e.g.: graticola, fresa, trapano, cazzuola, saldatore, scalpello;

(tool) (grill, cutter, drill, trowel, welder, chisel)

• arnese, e.g.: spalliera, schiaccianoci, cavatappi, macinino, cesoia, ventola

(tool) (nutcracker, corkscrew, mill, shears, fan)

Each of these subclasses subsume word senses belonging to different domains of usage. As to the Telic dimension, inherited from the Artifact type, and represented by the 'used_for' relation, it allows to group instruments belonging to different taxonomies, e.g.: bidente (pitchfork) 'isa' arnese; vanga (spade) 'isa' attrezzo; zappa (hoe) 'isa' attrezzo and all of them are linked through the same Telic: dissodare (to plough).

Here again a virtual sub partition of the type is performed through the 'isa' relation, which allows to differentiate four-wheel vehicles, i.e.: autoveicoli e.g.: automobile, ambulanza, autobus (car, ambulance, bus), from two-wheel ones, i.e.: ciclomotori, e,g.: motocicletta, vespa (motorbike, vespa). Vehicles which, for different reasons, do not fit into these two well-defined classes, e.g.: carro, cingolato, astronave, bicicletta (cart, tracked vehicle, space vessel, bicycle) are assigned a more generic 'isa' relation: veicolo (vehicle). The Constitutive relation, although not marked as type defining, allows to make further distinctions and therefore enables the extraction of subclasses. In the 'has_as_part' relation, the target motore (motor) and ruote (wheels) is shared by autoveicoli and ciclomotori. Air vehicles, are marked as having wings besides motore. Cycles, on the other hand, are marked as having pedals besides wheels. The Telic relation of vehicles is either trasportare or viaggiare (to transport or to travel). More specific uses, such as the one of navette (shuttle) could not be lexically specified. Domain information is here a quite relevant feature since it allows to distinguish the specific area of use of vehicles; i.e.: 'Road_transport' , 'Bus_transport', 'Car_transport', 'Rail_transport', 'Air_transport', 'Sea_transport', etc.

The lexical units typed as containers are assigned either recipiente or contenitore (container) as target of the 'isa' relation, depending on the fact they contain liquids or solids, hence bottiglia (bottle) 'isa' recipiente; scatola (box) 'isa' contenitore. Generic terms denoting containers are assigned the target contenitore.

A relevant number of word meanings encoded as containers display a polysemic relation with a corresponding reading encoded in the template Amount (see above the entry for bottiglia).

In this type are encoded objects which are physical supports of information, e.g. libro, rivista, contratto, regolamento, lettera, documento (book, magazine, contract, regulation, letter, document). The corresponding readings denoting the information itself are typed as Information and a relation of regular polysemy holds between them. This is reflected in the selectional restrictions of the predicates: while the arg1 of leggere or scrivere (to read, to write) select the information reading, verbs such as strappare, bruciare, portare (to tear, to burn, to carry) select the concrete, artifact one.

The top type Food encodes as usual generic terms such as cibo, alimento, nutrimento, piatto, portata, (food, aliment, nutriment, course) etc. The Telic dimension is lexically represented by the semantic unit mangiare (to eat).

The type Artifact_food provides the same information as Food, plus the Agentive dimension. So, everything which is elaborated in order to be eaten - either cooked , e.g. arrosto (roast) or only prepared, e.g. insalata (salad) - is better encoded in this template. Typical verbs used as target of the Agentive relation are cucinare, preparare, cuocere, impastare (to cook, to prepare, to knead).

The type Flavouring has as elements all those substances and plants which are used either to flavour or to season food. For plant derived flavourings, the 'isa' relation is aroma (spice) and a polysemic relation links flavouring and plant readings.

The template Animal is used to encode classes of animals such as mammifero, insetto, rettile, anfibio, etc. (mammal, insect, reptile, amphibian). The three subtypes Earth_animal, Air_animal and Water_animal are used for describing animal denoting nouns. Additional Constitutive information is encoded whenever it points to a characteristic feature of the animal described, e.g. tromba (trunk) for elefante (elephant). For amphibians, the two living environments are marked, e.g. rana (frog) is encoded as Earth_animal and its description includes the additional feature 'habitat=water'; anatra, as Air_animal, with the additional feature 'habitat=water'.

Some members of animal subtypes present a polysemic relation either with a food reading, a skin or fur reading, or with both, e.g.: agnello (lamb) is encoded as Earth_animal, Substance_food and Artifactual_material.

The type Human encompasses generic terms denoting humans, such as persona, uomo, donna, bambino, femmina, maschio (person, man, woman, child, female, male) characterized - except for the underspecified persona - by the features 'age' and 'sex'. These entries are assigned the semantic class 'Bio'. In this template are also encoded a relevant number of metaphorical uses of animal names, e.g. Luca e' un orso, un leone, una volpe (Luca is a bear, a lion, a fox). These entries are easily retrievable by means of the 'metaphor' relation which links them to the animal reading. Other metaphorical uses, not linked to animal names but rather to Social_status, e.g. nababbo, califfo (nabob, caliph) have also been encoded. Such metaphorical meanings are assigned the semantic class 'Situ'. The Constitutive relation 'has_as_property' is used in order to express the kind of physical or psychical property which is meant when dealing with deadjectival nouns such as calvo, biondo, (bald, blond).

Nouns denoting humans which are (or have been) object of an event (result_of), e.g. laureato, inviato (graduate, correspondent) are also typed as Human.

The type Human is also the place where nouns of persons were encoded. Such entries are retrievable by means of their specific semantic class 'Individual_names'.

Most of the nouns typed as People have a polysemic relation with the reading encoded in the template Language, reading which denotes either a language or a dialect.

A few lexical items are encoded in the template Role, i.e. membro, seguace (member, follower), since its subtypes Kinship, Ideo and Social_status provide more information.

Kinship nominals, which are relational nouns, are encoded in the template Kinship. The members of this class subcategorize for a human argument. Hence, the following representation is given:

Ideo encodes nouns denoting people who follow some ideological movement, e.g.: integralista, marxista, impresionista (integralist, marxist, impressionist). The target of the Constitutive relation 'is_a_follower_of' is a member of the type Movement_of_thought, e.g.: integralismo, marxismo, impresionismo (integralism, marxism, impressionism).

In the template Social_status are encoded nouns which refer to people having a special social role in different fields: religion, aristocracy, government, e.g. Papa, duca, sindaco (Pope, duke, major). Social_status is different from Profession because it lacks the Telic role. In some borderline case this difference is not easy to establish: is senatore (senator) better classified as a profession or as a social status?

Agent_of_temporary_activity is used to encode word meanings such as ambasciatore, messaggero, visitatore, pedone (messenger, visitor, pedestrian), i.e. a human referred to with a particular semantic unit in virtue of the action that he is performing (or has performed, e.g.: assassino (murderer)) an action. This action is specified as target of the Agentive relation.

Agent_of_persistent_activity allows to encode nouns denoting humans which have a particular habit or ability. This habit/ability is encoded in the Telic role. A number of SemUs encoded in the template Profession are linked to the previous type by means of a polysemic relation, as the example below shows.

Within the type Profession, the most underspecified entries are assigned persona as target of the 'isa' relation and lavorare (work) as target of the Telic role. In most of the cases, however, subtypes have been identified on the basis of the 'isa' relation. Profession names have been sub classified as artigiano, commerciante, professionista, operaio, studioso, medico, militare, atleta, calciatore (artisan, dealer, professional man, worker, studious, doctor, soldier, athlete, footballer). The specific target of the Telic relation and the Domain information further characterize the word meaning, e.g.: medico Telic: curare; Domain: Medecine.

In the area of Vegetals, a subtyping of the type Plant is provided by means of the 'isa' relation whose targets are either albero (tree), e.g. abete, pino (fir, pine) , pianta (plant), e.g. lampone, fragola (raspberry, strawberry) , arbusto (shrib) vite, rosmarino, e.g. (vine, rosemary), ortaggio (vegetable) , e.g.: melanzana (egg-plant) or verdura (greens), e.g.: cavolo, carciofo (cabbage, artichoke). A relevant number of entries typed as plants display the following polysemic relations:

'Plant_Fruit' : ananas, arachide, limone, mandarino (pineapple, peanut, lemon, tangerine)

'Plant_Substance': noce, tasso, ciliegio (walnut, ywe, cherry)

'Plant_Flower': begonia, geranio, viola (begonia, geranium, violet)

'Plant_Flavouring': alloro, pepe, rosmarino (laurel, pepper, rosemary)

Another polysemic relation emerged, which was not foreseen during the Specification phase, the 'Plant_Drink' one (Artifactual_drink template type), e.g.: te', caffe', verbena, rabarbaro, anice, (tee, coffee, verbena, rhubarb, anise).

Edible plants are assigned a non type-defining Telic information.

In the template Plant, the Constitutive relation 'produces' cannot be always filled. In fact spinacio, cavolo, lattuga, barbabietola (spinach, cabbage, lettuce, beet-root) do not produce anything but constitute themselves - as a whole or only part of them - the product.

Similarly, in the template Fruit, the Constitutive relation 'has_as_color' cannot always be provided, either because each variety of a fruit has a different color, think of mela (apple), should we say yellow, red, or green? same problem for fico, pompelmo, uva (fig, grapefruit, grapes) or because the fruit has different parts, each one of a different color.

For Fruit, the polysemy which may hold between a fruit and a plant can be considered as a case of the 'product/producer' alternation. In the lexical entry of the fruit, it is encoded in the Constitutive role by means of the relation 'produced_by'. In the lexical entry of the plant, it is encoded in the Constitutive role by means of the relation 'produces'. Besides, a polysemic relation relates the two entries. Same representation is provided for the polysemy holding between entries encoded in the template Flower and the corresponding plants, e.g.: viola, rosa, etc. (violet, rose). The Constitutive relation 'has_as_color' has been filled whenever possible, e.g.: malva, viola (mallow, violet).

In the top type Substance, the target of the 'isa' relation is in most of the case the word sostanza, and in some cases composto, e.g.: idrocarburo, poliestere (hydrocarbon, polyester), the Constitutive relation 'made_of' is filled whenever possible, e.g.: vaselina 'made_of' idrocarburo (vaseline, hydrocarbon), as well as the optional Telic one 'used_for' anestetico 'used_for' anastetizzare; colorante 'used_for' colorare (anaesthetic, to anaesthetize; coloring, to color). In a few cases, the relation 'used_as' is filled, e.g.: benzina 'used_as' carburante, solvente, smacchiatore (petrol, fuel, solvent, spot remover). In substance typed entries, the Domain information provides a subclassification of entries:

'Chemistry', for colloide, solvente, catalizzatore (colloid, solvent, catalyzer ; 'Biochemistry', for interferone, melanina (interferon, melanin); 'Physiology', for ormone (hormone); 'Pharmacy', for antibiotico, antisettico, calmante, collirio (antibiotic, antiseptic, calming, collyrium). The word meanings encoded in this template are typically mass nouns.

The elements of the type Natural_substance are nouns denoting substance produced by natural entities. The top elements are minerale and metallo (mineral, metal). Typical hyperomyms of specific entries typed as natural substances are sostanza, elemento, minerale and composto, (substance, element, mineral, compound). The Constitutive relation 'made_of' is instantiated for those entries whose 'isa' relation is defined as composto, e.g.: corallo 'made_of' calcare (coral, limestone); ioduro 'made_of' iodio and metallo (iodide, iodine, metal). The relation 'produced_by' is mainly instantiated for nouns denoting substances produced by some organ, bile 'produced_by' fegato (bile, liver), adrenalina 'produced_by' ghiandola (adrenalin, gland), and nouns denoting wood noce 'produced_by' noce (walnut, walnut tree). For the latter case, a polysemic relation 'Plant-Substance' holds between the two readings.

The Constitutive relation 'has_as_color' has been filled for some chemical elements and minerals. For some minerals, a polysemic relation with the colour reading has been established, e.g.: acquamarina, corallo, giada, turchese, etc. (aquamarine, coral, jade, turquoise).

In this template, the Telic relation 'object_of_the_activity' was instantiated in a few cases only. As to the relation 'used_as', it is assigned the target materiale, only for those substances used as material, e.g.: uranio, zinco, zolfo (uranium, zinc, sulphur).

The type Drink is a unified type, i.e.: a subtype of Substance plus a Telic dimension, which is the one of 'being used for drinking'. In the top type only generic words such as bevanda, bibita (drink, beverage) are encoded. In the Artifactual_drink type, an additional Agentive dimension is present, which informs on the process trough which the drink is created, vino (wine) 'created_by' fermentazione (fermentation). An optional Constitutive feature is sometimes instantiated, e.g.: caffellatte (white coffee). In this template, entries such as aperitivo, vino, caffe', liquore, etc. (aperitif, wine, coffee, liqueur) are encoded.

The top type Property encodes a few synonyms or near synonyms of the word 'property', e.g.: attributo, qualita', caratteristica, etc. (attribute, quality, characteristic).

The subtype Quality encodes quality denoting predicative mass nouns, most of which are deadjectival, e.g.: audacia, cattiveria, correttezza, egoismo, puntualita' (boldness, wickedness, correctness, egoism, punctuality). Entries encoded in this template are assigned the semantic class 'Attribute' and two optional Constitutive information, i.e.: the quality 'connotation' and, for deadjectivals, the relation 'property_of', which allows to express, by means of the adjective SemU, the quality at hand. Moreover, the derivational aspect is marked by means of the semantic relation 'Nounadjective' which links the noun to its adjectival base, e.g.:

Intelligenza, intuizione (intelligence, intuition) are encoded as Psych_property and are linked to the semantic class 'Psychological_feature'. These entries too are predicative mass nouns, most of them are deadjectival. Their representation is similar to the one of quality typed nouns but the argument is exclusively restricted to human beings-

Physical_property type contains predicative mass nouns denoting physical properties of entities, such as dimensions, speed, temperature, form, color, etc. Measurable properties such as: ampiezza, larghezza, lunghezza, peso (wideness, width, lenght, weight) are assigned the optional Constitutive relation 'measured_by' whose target is an element of the type Unit_of measurement.

Physical_power, a subtype of Physical_property encodes the different senses olfatto, gusto, tatto, udito, vista, etc. (smell, taste, touch, hearing, sight). An optional 'indirect_telic' relation expresses the function of the semantic unit: vista: 'indirect_telic' = vedere (sight, to see)

Shapes and colors are encoded respectively in the template Shape and Color. A relevant number of entries encoded in the latter have a polysemic relation with Natural_substance typed SemUs.

Social_property is a unified type which combines the main feature of being a subtype of Property with an Agentive dimension which is lexically represented, in the entries of diritto, potere, valore (right, power, value) by the SemU societa' (society).

Under the type Domain are grouped all discipline denoting mass nouns, e.g. medicina, filologia, antropologia, vulcanologia (medicine, philology, anthropology, vulcanology) besides count nouns such as disciplina, scienza (discipline, science). The optional Constitutive information i.e. 'concerns' and 'is_a_part_of', is provided. A sub clustering of entries is also possible through the Domain information, e.g.: pediatria and urologia: Domain = Medicine.

The template Time allows to encode all nouns referring to temporal expressions: time, point of time, periods of time, or parts of processes or events. The 'isa' relation is expressed accordingly by the word meanings: periodo, stagione, mese, giorno (period, season, month, day). Those periods of time which are repeated, i.e. seasons, months, days are marked with the Constitutive feature 'iterative=yes'. Points of time, e.g.: istante (instant) are marked as 'punctual=yes'. For word senses such as anno, mese, settimana, giorno (year, month, week, day), the Constitutive relations 'is_a_part_of' and 'has_as_part' allow to provide further information. The semantic classes are used as follows: vendemmia, vacanza (vintage, holiday): 'Time_period'; adolescenza, millenio (youth, millenium): 'Period'; luglio (July): 'Month'; venerdi' (Friday): 'Day'.

Moral_standard encodes moral principles which affect people's attitudes and behaviour, such as diritto, liberta', uguaglianza (right, freedom, equality). Constitutive information is encoded through the ‘connotation’ feature and the ‘concerns’ relation, the latter being typically filled in by the lexical units: societa' and individuo (society, individual).

The unified type Cognitive_fact describes entities denoting the result of a cognitive event, event which is lexically represented by the target of the Agentive relation. This target SemU is, in most of the cases, the verbal base of the derivational noun encoded as cognitive fact. Entries typed as cognitive facts are, e.g.: conoscenza, pensiero, nozione, interpretazione (knowledge, thought, notion, interpretation). Note that for the typing of entries belonging to this template, multi-word units such as fatto_cognitivo, rappresentazione_mentale (cognitive_fact, mental_representation) have been allowed as target of the 'isa' relation.

The unified type Movement_of_thought allows to encode entities denoting political, philosophical, religious or social movements of thought. The target SemUs of the 'isa' relation are: movimento, tendenza, sistema, dottrina (movement, trend, system, doctrine). The optional Constitutive relation 'has_as_member' points to a semantic unit typed as Ideo; the 'concerns' one indicates the area of concern of the movement, e.g.: politics, religion, etc. This information is also provided by the Domain feature. As to the Agentive relation, it could not be lexically filled in apart for those movements which were called after their creator, such as Marxism, Leninism, Stalinism. Since the Agentive dimension is indeed a meaning component of SemUs denoting movements of thought, the information was provided through the feature WVSFAgentiveYesPROT.

The unified type Institution includes nouns referring to human institutions and organizations. The Agentive relation indicates the event which brought to birth the institution. This event is most of the time indicated by the lexical unit fondare (to found). The Telic relation informs about the purpose of the institution. A relevant number of entries encoded under this template display a polysemic relation with the corresponding readings encoded both as Building and Human_group, e.g.: scuola, chiesa, senato (school, church, senate) or with the building reading only, e.g.: biblioteca, ditta (library, company) .

Words denoting abstract entities which are created by humans as the result of a process, and are conventionally agreed upon, e.g.: regolamento, tassa, contratto, legge, norma, accordo (regulation, tax, contract, law, norm, agreement) were encoded under the template type Convention. Some of these entries have a corresponding word meaning encoded as Semiotic_artifact, e.g.: contratto, regolamento (contract, regulation).

The type Representation includes count nouns denoting entities which are the result of a convention (Agentive dimension) and are meant to represent something ('indirect_telic' relation) such as rappresentazione, simbolo, segno, numero, marchio, insegna (representation, symbol, sign, number, mark, sign).

A particular type of representation, i.e. languages and dialects, are encoded in the type Language. All mass nouns denoting languages show a polysemic relation with the corresponding reading encoded in the type People.

All kinds of signs, which are used in order to convey an information, a meaning, such as punto, virgola, freccia, dieresi, apice (full stop, comma, arrow, dieresis, quote) are encoded in the template type Sign. Agentive and Telic information are the ones inherited from the top type Representation.

The elements of the type Information denote the information contained in a support of information. The prototypical target of the Agentive relation is a member of the type Symbolic_creation, i.e.: creare, scrivere, comporre (to create, to write, to compose), and the target of the Telic relation belongs to the template type Give_knowledge. Most entries encoded in this template have a polysemic relation with the corresponding reading encoded as Semiotic_artifact.

Numbers are encoded in the template type Number. In this template, SemUs are characterized by the target of their Telic role, which is contare (to count), and, in the Constitutive role, by the relation 'successor_of' . Domain and Semantic class are respectively 'Mathematics' and 'Number'.

The multi-word unit unita'_di_misura has been allowed as target of the 'isa' relation in the template Unit_of_measurement. The target of the Telic role is typically misurare (to measure). The target of the Constitutive relation 'result_of' is convenzione for all entries. Constitutive relations 'concerns', 'has_as_part' and 'quantifies' are instantiated whenever possible. A relevant number of quantity denoting entries are predicative entries, e.g.: grammo, metro, litro, tonnellata (gram, metre, litre, ton).

Verbs such as accadere, avvenire, capitare, succedere, verificarsi (to happen, to occur) and event denoting nouns as avvenimento, evento, stato (occurrence, event, state) are encoded in the top type Event. Verbs are assigned the 'isa' relation with target evento as well as a synomymic relation. Deverbal nouns are also assigned the derivational semantic relation 'Eventverb'.

SemUs which can be defined as phenomena, as e.g.: pioggia, ciclone, nebbia, neve, lampo, tuono, febbre, infezione, sintomo (rain, hurricane, fog, snow, lightening, thunder, fever, infection, symptom) are encoded in the template Phenomenon. Whenever possible, the optional Agentive relation 'caused_by' is filled in, e.g. for febbre, infezione, sintomo. Constitutive relations are marked in most of the cases, e.g.: nubifragio (downpour): 'concerns' tempo (weather); and 'has_as_effect' pioggia, vento (rain, wind).

Particular types of phenomena for which the Agentive dimension is most relevant are encoded in the following two templates.

All weather verbs are encoded in the template Weather_verb which is associated to the semantic class 'Weather', the 'isa' relation is expressed by means of a MWU fenomeno_atmosferico (atmospheric phenomenon) since no single lexical unit seemed to be appropriate. Weather verbs, which have an empty syntactic frame are assigned a shadow argument, which is restricted to a member of the type Phenomenon.

The type Disease clusters all nouns denoting either diseases or affections. Both 'isa' relation and semantic class assigned, respectively malattia, affezione (disease, affection) and 'Illness', 'Affection' provide a sub classification of the Disease-typed semantic units. The type-defining Agentive relation 'caused_by' is filled wherever possible. Constitutive information is also provided: 'concerns' informs about the part of the entity which is affected otite 'concerns' orecchio (otitis, ear); 'typical_of' allows to identify the affected entity, e.g.: rogna_1 'typical_of ' animale / rogna_2 'typical_of' pianta (scabies, animal, plant).

Stimulus enables to encode stimuli denoting words such as rumore, suono, odore (sound, smell), caused either by phenomena or concrete entities, i.e.: vibrazione, sostanza (vibration, substance) and which provoke a sensation.

Verbs grouped under the type Aspectual were extracted from the PAROLE lexicon on the basis of their description identifier. They consist of the intransitive reading of verbs such as cominciare, iniziare, cessare, finire (to begin, to start, to stop, to end). These entries are assigned the 'isa' relation essere (to be) and are differentiated through the Constitutive 'aspect' feature by means of one of the three values 'inchoative', 'durative', 'terminative'. Such predicates subcategorize for an Event-typed argument.

Transitive readings of the above mentioned verbs, as well as derived nouns as inizio, fine, etc. (start, end) are encoded in the corresponding causative type, i.e.: Cause_aspectual. The Agentive dimension is expressed by the 'agentive_cause' relation whose prototypical target is the verb reading fare (to do, to cause) encoded in the template Cause. Predicates linked to cause_aspectual readings are biargumental.

Both Aspectual and Cause_aspectual types are assigned semantic class 'Change' and 'Event_type= transition' .

General word meanings denoting states, such as essere, stare (to be, to stay) and situazione, condizione, mancanza (situation, condition, lack) are encoded under the top type State. In all stative types, the Semantic class is 'Stative', except for Stative_possession, and the Event_type 'State'.

The template Exist provides a similar information for SemUs as esistere, prosperare, vivere, vita (to exist, to prosper, to live; life) and the 'isa' relation defines entries as 'states'.

Entries such as legame, relazione, concernere, riguardare (link, relationship, to concern) are encoded in the template Relational_state. This type subsumes the following subtypes:

Identificational_state, where senses such as armonizzare, coincidere, equivalere, rappresentare, simboleggiare (to harmonize, to coincide, to be equivalent, to represent, to symbolize) were clustered. Those entities denote states which assign a property to an entity. The feature 'manner=yes' indicates the manner of the relation holding between two entities. The feature 'possible=yes' have been assigned to those senses which indicate that the identification is actual, e.g. denotare, indicare, rivelare (to denote, to indicate, to reveal).

Constitutive_state that includes units such as comprendere, contenere, includere (to comprise, to contain, to include). Such word senses express a part-of relation holding between two entities. The feature 'meronym=yes' was used for entries such as appartenere, comprendere (to belong, to comprise) while 'meronym=no' was assigned to escludere, mancare (to exclude, to lack).

Stative_location, which include lexical items denoting the position of an individual, giacere, sostare (to lie, to stop), the spatial configuration between two entities circondare (to surround), and lodge verbs and nominalizations, e.g.: abitare, permanenza, risiedere (to live, a stay, to reside). For these entries, a feature 'duration' was provided whenever possible.

Stative_possession entries are assigned the semantic class 'Possession' avere, conservare, possedere (to have, to keep, to possess).

The top type Act encodes quite generic action denoting units, e.g.: agire, azione, (to act, action) which are linked to a one-place predicate. The Event_type associated to this type (and subtypes) is 'Process'.

The type Non_relational_act refers to physical processes concerning different kinds of concrete entities. It includes entities encoding sound, smell, substance and light emission echeggiare, vibrare, sbattere, scoppiare, puzzare, versare, illuminare (to echo, to vibrate, to bang, to explode, to stink, to leak , to illuminate); sounds made by animals abbaiare, cinguettare (to bark, to chirrup); breathe verbs respirare, ansimare (to breathe, to pant); and entity-specific modes of being sbocciare (to blossom). The constitutive relation 'concerns' provides information about the kind of entity the lexical units refers to. The 'produces' relation was mainly used for entities denoting sound emission. The entities encoded in this template are one-place predicates and different selectional restrictions on the arguments identify the different kinds of activities involved. Some of the SemUs, e.g.. vibrare, suonare (to ring), sbattere are related to other senses encoded in the template Cause_act.

Relational_act, on the other hand, encode event denoting entities which express activities involving two entities, e.g. mangiare, colpire, manipolare, manipolazione (to eat, to hit, to manipulate, manipulation). Such entries are linked to two-place predicates, where the Arg1 is either a default or a true argument.

With respect to its supertype Relational_act, Cooperative_activity is a unified type which includes an Agentive dimension which is expressed through the feature 'agentive=yes'. It allows to encode activities that individuals carry out together combattere, collaborare, sposare (to fight, to collaborate, to marry). A meaning difference between these predicates is captured by means of the Constitutive feature 'attitude' whose values are 'for', e.g. cooperare (to cooperate) and 'against’ combattere. Lexical items encoded in this template type are thus two or three place predicates. The semantic classes assigned to such units are mostly 'Activity' and 'Social'.

Purpose_act is a subtype of Relational_act. It includes a Telic dimension which is expressed, according to the cases, by means of the feature 'telic=yes' or by the ‘telic’ or 'purpose' relation. It allows to encode SemUs denoting activities which are closely related to a particular purpose, e.g.: cacciare, lavorare, correggere, inseguire, riparare (to hunt, to work, to correct, to pursue, to shelter, to fix).

SemUs encoded in the template Move are assigned the semantic type 'Motion'. They are intransitive movement verbs and deverbal nouns, e.g.: muoversi, movimento, caminare, alzarsi, sedere (to move, movement, to walk, to stand up, to sit down). They are related to one-place predicates.

The corresponding causative type describes processes which involve an individual causing motion. Caused_motion is a unified type which includes an Agentive dimension expressed by the relation 'agentive_cause', which is typically filled in by the Cause reading of the verb fare (to do, to cause). SemUs such as muovere, spingere, lanciare (to move, to push, to throw) are linked to two or three place predicates; the third argument, if any, denoting a location.

Lexical units encoded in this semantic type are typically causative. The verbs denote an event which an agent makes happen or an agent inducing something or somebody to act, e.g.: costringere, impedire, obbligare, (to constrain, to prevent, to oblige). Verbs denoting the event of someone causing a sound emission, sbattere, suonare (to bang, to ring) are related with their inchoative counterpart encoded in the template Non_relational_act by means of a polysemic relation.

Semantic units denoting a speech act are encoded either in this template or in its subtypes. They are all assigned event type 'Process' and semantic class 'Communication'. The top type clearly includes the most underspecified entries such as parlare, pronunciare, articolare, dire, esprimere, sussurare (to talk, to pronounce, to articulate, to say, to express, to murmur). The Constitutive feature 'voice_quality' allows to distinguish entries such as strillare (to shout) from bisbigliare (to whisper). Six different subtypes encode the main classes of speech acts.

This template type encodes a speech act occurring between two or more persons, e.g.: comunicare, dialogare, insultare (to communicate, to dialog, to insult). Besides the information present in the supertype members, these SemUs are assigned an additional Constitutive feature 'attitude=for, against' which enables to differentiate events such as conversare, conversazione (to chat, a chat) from litigare, litigio (to argue, an argument).

The lexical units encoded in this template, e.g.: affermare, dichiarare, annunciare, informare, riferire (to assert, to declare, to announce, to inform, to report), are typically the ones used in newspapers to report someone's speech or to provide information. This is the reason why, contrary to the previous speech act types, this is a unified type that includes a Telic dimension, expressed by the 'purpose' relation whose target is informare. Constitutive features allow to better capture the meaning components. The feature 'expliciteness=explicit, implicit', is specific to this template and allows to distinguish events such as affermare from allusione (allusion); 'strenght=high, low' for annunciare (to announce) vs. alludere (to allude); 'audience=public' for divulgare, informare (to divulgate, to inform).

Semantic units encoded in this template denote a speech act in which the speaker commits himself to do (or not to do) something, e.g.: promettere, minacciare, giuramento (to promise, to threaten, oath). This future act is captured by the Telic role. Except for 'explicitness' which is specific to the previous type, Commissive_speech_act typed entries have the same type of information plus a specific feature 'obligation=weak, strong' to differentiate promettere (to promise) from minacciare (to threaten). Besides, the feature 'affectedness = positive, negative' has been assigned in order to mark the impact of the event on the speaker, e.g.: giurare (to swear), 'affectedness = positive'; minacciare (to threaten) 'affectedness = negative'. The Telic dimension is expressed by means of the 'telic' feature.

Contrary to the event described in the previous one, in this semantic type, the speaker expects the hearer to do something, e.g.: chiedere, consigliare, esortare, ordinare (to ask, to advice, to exhort, to order). Here again, the future act is captured by the Telic role.

We encoded in this template those speech acts in which the speaker expresses his feeling concerning an entity or an event acclamare, criticare, congratulare, rimproverare (to acclaim, to criticize, to congratulate, to scold). The Constitutive feature 'presupposition = new, presupposed' has been used to distinguish cases in which the information in the complement clause is new to the speaker, e.g. augurare (to wish) from those in which it is presupposed, e.g.: rimproverare (to scold).

The speech acts encoded in this semantic type are those which are possible because of the special role the speaker has, e.g.: battezzare, nominare, ordinare, eleggere (to christen, to nominate, to ordain, to elect). The features 'formality=formal' has been assigned to all members of this type.

The Psychological_Event type encodes different types of events which are specific to the human mind. This class includes both psychological, e.g.: pensare (to think) and perception verbs, e.g.: avvertire, percepire (to feel, to perceive). The entries encoded under this template differ as to their event type. Some of them are typical states, others are processes. Different semantic classes were assigned to such units: 'Emotion', 'Cognition', 'Perception', 'Stative'.

It is a subtype of Psychological_Event which enables to encode mental activities, e.g.: ammettere, capire, meditare, pensare, riflettere, ricordare, valutare (to admit, to understand, to meditate, to think, to reflect, to remember, to assess). Factive verbs like capire, comprendere, realizzare (to understand, to comprehend, to realize) and non-factive ones like credere (to believe) were assigned respectively the feature 'presupposed =yes' (which means that the truth of the complement phrase is presupposed) and 'presupposed=no'.

This type is a subtype of Cognitive_event and it includes a Telic dimension expressed though the Telic feature. Verbs which are encoded in this template are typically three place predicates whose third slot is filled at syntactic level by an object predicate complement, e.g. considerare, credere, giudicare, reputare, ritenere (to consider, to believe, to judge, to repute, to deem). A type defining Constitutive feature 'presupposed=yes' has been assigned to all entries.

This semantic type is a unified type, i.e. a subtype of Psychological_Event including an Agentive dimension. Under this template type are encoded those verbs expressing events which are the result of a subject experiencing an emotion, such as amare, ammirare, spaventarsi (to love, to admire, to frighten). The Agentive relation ‘agentive_experience' has as target the prototypical SemUs sentire, provare (to feel). The optional Constitutive features 'connotation' and 'strength' were instantiated wherever possible, e.g. for : odiare, detestare, adorare (to hate, to detest, to adore).

This type enables to encode transitive verbs (and nominalizations) such as amareggiare, annoiare, esasperare, preoccupare, stupire (to sadden, to annoy, to exasperate, to worry, to amaze) whose subject is the cause of the change in psychological state and whose object is the experiencer of the emotion, e.g.: questo fatto angoscia Luca (this fact anguish Luca) vs. Luca si angoscia per qualcosa (Luca grieve at st.), which is encoded in the above type. The 'agentive_cause' relation has as target the prototypical SemU causare (to cause). A polysemic relation links those entries which are encoded both in Experience_event and in Cause_experience_event.

Entities denoting perceptions which involve the senses of a living entity are encoded under this template type. Such perceptions are linked either to volitional, e.g.: guardare, ascoltare (to look, to listen) or non-volitional events e.g.: vedere, sentire (to see, to hear) which, at encoding level, are distinguished by means of the Constitutive optional binary feature 'intentionality'. Most of the entries were also assigned the Constitutive optional relation 'instrument' which informs on the instrument of the perception naso, orecchio, occhio, cervello (nose, ear, eye, brain). The semantic class 'Perception' is assigned to all members of this type.

This template, which is a subtype of Psychological_Event with an extra Telic dimension, allows to encode verbs of desire, intention, such as aspettarsi, volere, desiderare, sperare (to expect, to want, to desire, to hope). The first argument is typically an animate and the second one an event which is modally subordinated. All entries bear a type defining Constitutive feature 'possible=yes'.

All 'Change' verbs are assigned 'Event_type=transition' and Semantic class 'Change'. Under the top type Change are encoded general terms denoting a change, such as cambiare, trasformare, modificare (to change, transform, modify). The resulting state of the transition is expressed by means of the target SemU of the Constitutive relation 'resulting_state', which is most of the time an adjective, e.g.: modificare: 'resulting_state' = diverso.

This template type encodes the inchoative reading of verbs such as connettere, collegare, unire (to connect, to link). The Agentive role is filled with the relation 'agentive' whose target is the prototypical verb cambiare (to change) and in the Consititutive quale, the type defining relations 'resulting_state' encodes the resulting event, i.e. connessione, collegamento, unione (connexion, link, union).

In this template we encoded verbs denoting the fact that some entity becomes a part — or ceases to be a part — of another entity, e.g.: agganciare, amalgamare, combinare, dividere, smontare (to hook up, to amalgamate, to combine, to divide, to dismantle). In the Constitutive role, the 'resulting_state' relation has as target the SemUs appartenenza or divisione (membership, division) and the 'meronym' feature is used as in the type Constitutive_state. The agentive dimension is expressed by means of the 'agentive' feature.

Change_of _state is a unified type which includes an Agentive dimension expressed by the feature WVSFAgentiveYesPROT. Indebolirsi, allargarsi, annerirsi, rompersi (to weaken, to widen, to blacken, to brake) are typical verb senses encoded in this template. Here again, the resulting state is expressed in the Constitutive role by the corresponding adjective debole, largo, nero, etc. (weak, large, black). Constitutive features 'connotation' and 'partitive' indicate respectively whether the connotation is positive or negative, and whether the change of state concerns part of the object, or the entire integrity.

Change_of _value has a structure similar to Change_of_state. It differs from it by the selectional restrictions of a possible Arg1 (amount-typed SemU) and by the Constitutive feature 'direction= up, down' which indicates the direction of the change of value, e.g. ‘up’ for aumentare (to increase), ‘down’ for diminuire (to decrease).

The lexical units encoded in this template are assigned a more precise semantic class: 'Possession'. Verbs of change of possession, such as acquisire, espropriare, prestare, rubare (to acquire, to expropriate, to lend, to steal) describe a transfer which can be specified as to whether the individual acquires the possession of a concrete entity. This occurs in the Constitutive role, where the relation 'resulting_state' has as target either avere or dare (to have, to give); the Constitutive binary feature 'legal' is instantiated wherever possible. The Agentive dimension is captured by the 'agentive' feature.

This template is a subtype of Change_possession. It encodes lexical units such as acquistare, donare, comprare, scambiare, vendere, trasferire (to purchase, to donate, to buy, to exchamge, to sell, to transfer ). As in the above template, the resulting state allows to make an inference relative to the subject, namely the individual has or does not have possession of the object. However, here, the transfer is more precisely described in the Constitutive role by means of the 'instrument' relation (target 'money') and the 'reciprocal' feature.

With respect to the entities encoded in the template Move, for the ones encoded in this template the stress is on the resulting change of location e.g.: alzarsi, scendere, capovolgere (to get up, to go down, to turn over). , rather than on the manner of motion. The 'agentive' relation has as target muovere (to move). In the Constitutive role, the target Usem of the 'resulting_ state' relation is the prototypical one stare to stay) which is a member of Stative_location and the feature direction differentiates the movement implied in the change of location.

In this template are encoded 'appear' and 'disappear' verbs, such as emergere, nascere, morire, sorgere, svanire, tramontare (to emerge, to be born, to die, to rise, to vanish, to set). The Agentive dimension is expressed by means of the 'agentive' feature and in the Constitutive role, the 'resulting_state' indicates whether the entity exists or is died.

Events denoting an acquisition of knowledge, such as imparare, documentarsi, scoprire, studiare (to learn, to collect background information, to discover, to study) are encoded in this template. The object of knowledge can either be an abstract entity or an event. The Agentive dimension is expressed by means of the 'agentive' feature. In the Constitutive quale, the 'resulting_state' relation has as target a member of the Cognitive_event template sapere (to know) and the feature 'presupposition=new' is instantiated.

Cause_change, Cause_relational_change, Cause_constitutive_change, Cause_change_of state, Cause_change_of_value, Cause_change_location and Cause_natural_transition are the causative counterpart of Change types, they express causative events of change. They are assigned same value for Event_type and semantic class as above. They differ from the Change types in that they encode transitive readings of verbs encoded in the Change template (and subtypes) as well as deverbal nouns. As for all Cause types, the target of the Agentive relation 'agentive_cause' is the verb reading fare which belongs to the type Cause.

The type Creation is a Cause_change type. SemUs encoded under this template express an event in which an entity is brought into being. For verbs, this entity is expressed as target of the Constitutive relation 'resulting_state', and is the object nominalization of the verb encoded, e.g.: produrre, creare (to produce, create) 'resulting_state' = produzione, creazione (production, creation). In the description of such deverbals, the 'resulting_state' target SemU is a member of the type Exist, i.e.: creazione: 'resulting_state' = esistere.

Four subtypes of Creation allow for a more granular classification of entries. In the template Physical_creation, event denoting entities such as costruzione, fabbricare, scolpire, incisione (construction, to make, to sculpt, engraving) are encoded. The type Mental_creation has as members words such as ideare, concepire, programmazione (to devise, to conceive, programming). In Symbolic_creation, dipingere, disegnare, illustrare (to paint, to draw, to illustrate).

In the type Give_knowledge, a further dimension is present: the Telic one. The SemUs encoded in this template type express events where an individual acts in order to give knowledge to another individual, hence insegnare, insegnamento, spiegare (to teach, teaching, to explain). The Constitutive 'resulting_state' target is a member of the type Cognitive_event and the Telic 'purpose' target belong to the Acquire_knowledge type.

All verb entries typed as Change and Cause_change (and subtypes) are related to their corresponding intransitive / transitive reading by means of a polysemic relation.

1,000 senses of adjectives corresponding to 713 lemmas were encoded according to the Linguistic Specifications elaborated by the Sheffield partner.

The adjectives to be encoded were extrated from the PAROLE lexicon according to their frequency in the PAROLE corpus text. All different meanings of adjectives have been first distinguished into 'Intensional' (nonpredicating) and 'Extensional' ones in order to be encoded in the relevant templates. Extensional typed adjectives were further classified as 'intersective' or 'subsective' (respectively 'absolute' and 'relative' in EAGLES' terminology) on the basis of the following definitions. Intersective adjectives are defined as 'those for which the set of things denoted by the adjective-noun compound is the intersection of the set of things denoted by the adjective and the set of things denoted by the noun.' . Whereas, for subsective adjectives it is said that they 'do not denote a set of things which can be identified independently of the noun they modify, for their meaning is in some sense `relative' to the thing they modify'. Such classification has not always been straightforward.

Besides the indication of their Template Type, Supertype and, whenever possible, of Semantic Class, adjectives are assigned a syntatic type feature whose values are SyntacticTypeAttrPredPROT, for adjectives that can be used both predicatively and attributively; SyntacticTypeAttrPROT for attributive use only.

As for the Qualia structure, following WordNet and in contrast to the encoding of nouns and verbs, the Formal role of adjectives is expressed by means of an antonym relation which allows to express gradable antonyms, complementary antonyms or multiple oppositions (see section 2.5.). In a few cases, however, e.g.: un grande fumatore (a heavy smoker), no antonym was deemed adequate and only a synonym, e.g.: forte was provided.

The Constitutive role has a crucial role in the description of adjectives. It is the place where the meaning components are expressed in the form of features. For adjectives which may be collocated on a continuous scale, i.e. mostly gradable adjectives, the meaning component feature is associated with a value indicating the location of the adjective on a scale, according to the meaning component. The information about the stative/dynamic status of adjectives is indicated by means of the values 'persisten', 'temporary' or 'underspecified' of the 'duration' feature. The 'scalar' feature indicates the gradability of the property expressed by the adjective.

According to the Linguistic Specifications, Agentive and Telic roles were never instantiated since they were felt to express semantic dimensions of the whole noun phrase rather than of the adjective itself.

For most adjectives, a synonym was provided since we felt it could help to better grasp the different senses of highly polysemic adjectives, e.g. alto / nobile; alto / acuto (high /noble; high / acute).

A predicative representation is provided for frame-bearing adjectives. Let us remind that in the syntactic lexicon, Italian adjectives are not assigned any internal complement, except in those few cases where it is required for control information.

Adjectives which modify from a temporal point of view the interpretation of the noun they modify, such as attuale (current) , futuro (future) , prossimo (next), or presente (present) were encoded in this template type. They are marked as non scalar, are assigned the meaning components 'present' 'past' or 'future' with a neutral value, and are generally marked as 'duration' 'underspecified' ' or persistent' to express their stativity.

Adjectives whose meaning convey the speaker's assessment regarding the possibility of an event to happen, to be true, etc. i.e.: impossibile, improbabile, verosimile (impossible, unlikely, likely). These adjectives are generally marked as non scalar, 'duration=persistent'. They are assigned three different values of 'Modality type': 'possible' that indicates that something is possible or allowed, for adjectives such as attendibile, credibile, plausibile, realizzabile (reliable, credible, plausible, realizable); 'deontic', that indicates a necessity for obbligatorio, perentorio, doveroso, etc. (obligatory, peremptory, only right) and 'epistemic' which encodes the speaker's opinion about the realization of a fact, as in sicuro (sure).

The 'Modality feature' attribute indicates whether there exists a human influence over the modality (value 'intrinsic'), for accettabile, credibile (acceptable, believable) or not (value 'extrinsic') as in vincolante, obbligatorio, insostenibile (binding, obligatory, unbearable). Modal adjectives were assigned the noun semantic class 'Cognition'.

Emotive adjectives denote the speaker's emotive feeling regarding the entity denoted by the noun they modify, such as beato te, l'odiato rivale, un povero storpio (lucky you, the hated rival, a poor cripple). They are non predicative and non scalar and are assigned the meaning component 'Experience'. These adjectives were also ascribed the verb semantic class 'Emotion'.

Manner adjectives are said to 'modify the event associated with the noun rather than the noun itself.'

Hence, non predicative senses of adjectives such as veloce, rapido in un veloce saluto, un rapido calcolo (a quick greeting, a rapid calculation) have been assigned this template type.

Relational adjectives, as e.g.: artistico, commerciale, lessicale, musicale, nazionale (artistic, commercial, lexical, musical, national) constitute a subclass of denominal adjectives,. They are only used attributively and convey the meaning of both a preposition and a noun, e.g. cardiaco = del cuore (cardiac = of the heart), establishing a relationship between the noun head of the syntagma and the noun they are derived from. They have a restrictive function and are thus usually found in postnominal position only e.g.: *elettrico impianto *statale impiegato . It is worth noting, however, that some of them may be used with a connotative function in prenominal position, e.g.: paterna dolcezza; burocratica lentezza; besides they cannot be used in comparative or superlative forms: *questa centrale e’ nuclearissima, *questa corsa e’ piu’ automobilistica di quell’altra.

In our coding, the relation 'related_to' expresses the link to their semantic base. On the other hand, a 'derivational' relation points to the noun they derive from. The target of these two relations is generally the same and hence this may seem a redundant information but consider that some of these adjectives have no morphological link with the noun they are semantically related to, e.g.: urbano, 'related_to: città' (urban, 'related_to: city). All adjectives encoded under this type were assigned the LexiQuest's semantic class of nouns 'Attribute', their stativity is marked by the feature 'duration=persistent'. No synonym have been provided for these entries.

Emphasizer adjectives stress the particular relevance of the event or entity they modify. Hence, non predicative senses of totale, grande, vero in noun phrases such as una pazzia totale, un grande scrittore, un vero uomo (a complete folly, a great writer, a real man). All these entries were assigned the meaning component 'salience' with a positive value and the noun semantic class 'Attribute'.

All of the extensional adjectives encoded in the templates below are classified as 'intersective' or subsective', according to the above definitions.

Within this template type, entries are further distinguished through the assignment of the most appropriate among the following meaning components: 'Experience/feeling', 'Psych. state', 'Cognition', 'Attitude_salience', and 'Attitude_evaluation'. This last one has in its turn 15 subtypes that allow to perform a still more granular classification. This large set of possible characterizations has enabled the coding of quite a relevant number of entries and of different senses of the same adjective, e.g.: buono (good) was encoded with the following feature value pairs (meaning component, location on scale): 'Moral, positive' e.g.: buono con i bambini (nice with children), 'Functionality, positive', e.g.: buono per il fegato (good for the liver) , 'Competence, positive', e.g.: un buon soldato (a good soldier). Note that in the above examples, the adjective cattivo (bad) would be assigned same meaning component and opposite location on scale value. Psychological adjectives were all assigned the noun semantic class 'Psychological_feature'.

The meaning of adjectives encoded in the semantic type 'Social_Property' is specified through one of the following meaning components: 'Religion', cristiano, musulmano (christian, muslim); 'Political', socialista (socialist); 'Economy', costoso (expensive); 'Society', potente (powerful), 'Law', colpevole (guilty), 'Nationality', italiano (Italian). The meaning component 'Military' has not been used, due to the restricted number of adjectives encoded. A relation of regular polysemy relates 'Nationality' typed adjectives with those denoting a 'Style', which is a subtype of the meaning component 'Attitude_evaluation' in the Psychological_property type, e.g.: un ragazzo messicano / la cucina messicana (a mexican boy / mexican cuisine).

The Physical_Property template, further specified by means of some meaning components, enables to encode adjectives denoting 'Body' functions, physical constitution debole (weak), sensation stanco (tired), etc.; 'Perception' adjectives, subclassified as 'Hearing' acuto (acute), 'Touch' morbido (soft), etc.; 'Movement' adjectives veloce (fast), 'Space' largo (large) and 'Substance' ones. The latter meaning component is further subtyped as to allow the description of adjectives denoting 'Consistency' solido (solid), 'Temperature' tiepido (lukewarm), 'Weight' leggero (light), 'Quantity' esiguo (exiguous) and so on. A relation of regular polysemy relates 'Temperature' denoting adjectives with those denoting a 'Behaviour', which is a subtype of the meaning component 'Attitude_evaluation' in the Psychological_property type, e.g.: una giornata fredda / un atteggiamento freddo (a cold day / a cold behaviour).

Adjectives informing about the temporal actualisation of the noun they modified were subclassified according to the meaning components: 'Temporal' nuovo (new) which is further subtyped as 'past' precedente (anterior), 'present' and 'future' seguente (next); 'Temp_distribution' raro (rare); 'Aspect' with all aspectual subtypes, e.g.: iniziale, frequente (initial, frequent); and 'Age' giovane, adulto (yong, adult). The location scale value for this class of adjectives is underspecified (value 'neutral').

Adjectives denoting a relation between entities were further subtyped according to the meaning component 'Comparison' analogo, corrispondente, paragonabile (analog, corresponding, comparable). These adjectives were assigned the noun semantic class 'Attribute'. All members of this class have a predicative representation.

The meaning component 'Power' allowed to encode adjectives such as forte, intenso or irrilevante (strong, intense, irrelevant) whereas adjectives such as forte, grande, in un forte fumatore, un grande camminatore (a strong smoker, a great walker) were assigned the meaning component 'Frequency'. The location on scale value assigned to these entries is never 'underspecified'. All adjectives encoded in this template type were assigned the noun semantic class 'Attribute'.

The assignment of the 'location on scale' value has not always been quite straightforward. As a matter of fact, assigning a value to 'beautiful' or 'sad' and deciding that 'early', 'late' or 'wooden' are underspecified is quite easy. Other cases are however less trivial, and the assignment of a value for the location on scale is to be intended in the following way. With respect to, say, the 'Power' dimension, the adjective 'strong' is 'positive' and 'light 'negative'. Similarly, as to 'Temperature', 'Dimension', 'Speed', 'Weight', 'hot', 'large' 'fast' and 'heavy' were felt as high in the relevant scales and hence 'positive'. With respect to the dimension 'Comparison', 'similar' and 'different' were assigned respectively a 'positive' and 'negative' value, and so on.