An ontological account of linguistics: extending SUMO with GOLD

Recent advances in applied ontology and reusable linguistic resources such as WordNet have created exciting possibilities for synergy between knowledge engineering and linguistics. We present general ontology for linguistic description (GOLD), an effort to establish a common domain model for linguistics. GOLD extends the SUMO upper model and is inspired by data from a broad cross section of human languages. These two virtues of GOLD act to minimize language bias in the model. GOLD makes a clear distinction between grammar and semantics and furthermore, clarifies the connection between linguistic and world knowledge. A detailed summary of GOLD is presented which includes the motivation for the conceptual model along with an explanation of the major entities and relations. By taking into account data from endangered languages, the GOLD model also suggests revisions and expansions to the SUMO category process, in particular to account for verbal aspect in natural language.