edu.brandeis.cs.steele.wn
Interface DictionaryDatabase

All Known Implementing Classes:

FileBackedDictionary

public interface DictionaryDatabase

An object in a class that implements this interface is a broker or factory for objects that model WordNet lexical and semantic entities.

See Also:

FileBackedDictionary

Method Summary

java.lang.String	lookupBaseForm(POS pos, java.lang.String derivation) Return the base form of an exceptional derivation, if an entry for it exists in the database.
IndexWord	lookupIndexWord(POS pos, java.lang.String lemma) Look up a word in the database.
java.util.Enumeration	searchIndexWords(POS pos, java.lang.String substring) Return an enumeration of all the IndexWords whose lemmas contain substring as a substring.
java.util.Enumeration	synsets(POS pos) Return an enumeration over all the Synsets in the database.

Method Detail

lookupIndexWord

public IndexWord lookupIndexWord(POS pos,
                                 java.lang.String lemma)

Look up a word in the database. The search is case-independent, and phrases are separated by spaces ("look up", not "look_up").

Parameters:

pos - The part-of-speech.

lemma - The orthographic representation of the word.

Returns:

An IndexWord representing the word, or null if no such entry exists.

lookupBaseForm

public java.lang.String lookupBaseForm(POS pos,
                                       java.lang.String derivation)

Return the base form of an exceptional derivation, if an entry for it exists in the database.

Parameters:

pos - The part-of-speech.

derivation - The inflected form of the word.

Returns:

The uninflected word, or null if no exception entry exists.

searchIndexWords

public java.util.Enumeration searchIndexWords(POS pos,
                                              java.lang.String substring)

Return an enumeration of all the IndexWords whose lemmas contain substring as a substring.

Parameters:

pos - The part-of-speech.

Returns:

An enumeration of IndexWords.

synsets

public java.util.Enumeration synsets(POS pos)

Return an enumeration over all the Synsets in the database.

Parameters:

pos - The part-of-speech.

Returns:

An enumeration of Synsets.