Using verbs to characterize noun-noun relations

Abstract

We present a novel, simple, unsupervised method for characterizing the semantic relations that hold between nouns in noun-noun compounds. The main idea is to discover predicates that make explicit the hidden relations between the nouns. This is accomplished by writing Web search engine queries that restate the noun compound as a relative clause containing a wildcard character to be filled in with a verb. A comparison to results from the literature suggest this is a promising approach. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2006.