Another Word For It Patrick Durusau on Topic Maps and Semantic Diversity

May 16, 2012

Lucene-1622

Filed under: Indexing,Lucene,Synonymy — Patrick Durusau @ 9:32 am

Multi-word synonym filter (synonym expansion at indexing time) Lucene-1622

From the description:

It would be useful to have a filter that provides support for indexing-time synonym expansion, especially for multi-word synonyms (with multi-word matching for original tokens).

The problem is not trivial, as observed on the mailing list. The problems I was able to identify (mentioned in the unit tests as well):

  • if multi-word synonyms are indexed together with the original token stream (at overlapping positions), then a query for a partial synonym sequence (e.g., “big” in the synonym “big apple” for “new york city”) causes the document to match;
  • there are problems with highlighting the original document when synonym is matched (see unit tests for an example),
  • if the synonym is of different length than the original sequence of tokens to be matched, then phrase queries spanning the synonym and the original sequence boundary won’t be found. Example “big apple” synonym for “new york city”. A phrase query “big apple restaurants” won’t match “new york city restaurants”.

I am posting the patch that implements phrase synonyms as a token filter. This is not necessarily intended for immediate inclusion, but may provide a basis for many people to experiment and adjust to their own scenarios.

This remains an open issue as of 16 May 2012.

It is also an important open issue.

Think about it.

As “big data” gets larger and larger, at some point traditional ETL isn’t going to be practical. Due to storage, performance, selective granularity or other issues, ETL is going to fade into the sunset.

Indexing, on the other hand, which treats data “in situ” (“in position” for you non-archaeologists in the audience), avoids many of the issues with ETL.

The treatment of synonyms, that is synonyms across data sets, multi-word synonyms, specifying the ranges of synonyms (both for indexing and search), synonym expansion, a whole range of synonyms features and capabilities, needs to “man up” to take on “big data.”

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