Research Project: JurWordNet, law semantic lexicon
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One of the most interesting functions of the wordnet methodology is the distinction of meanings in polysemies, both within the domain and in relation with common language. For instance, the Italian juridical term canone, means both the payment in money or in kind, against a contract; or, in the canonic right, a universal juridical norm. The Italian term mora is meant both as "unjustified lateness in discharging an obligation" and as "the amount of money due as fine against the delay". The Italian term alimento substantially changes its meaning if considered in its singular form as "food", or plural form as "alimony". The entry alienation in a juridical context is a juridical act; whereas in common Italian is has several meanings, all unconnected to the technical meaning of the term. Making explicit the difference in meaning, the user is allowed to build more precise questions for information searching.

Often, sense distinctions do not only concern the language, but also the differences in perceiving reality: for instance, to separate in a concept the role from the function, as for physical-substantial elements. The entry President of the Republic indicates the physical person (referring to space and dimension), the constitutional body, and the holder of the state function. Another example, very common in law, is the distinction between the normative content and the physical entity: the entry contract may be catalogued as a privity, as the physical entity of the paper, and as information content. The entry appeal includes the sense of petition made to the Judge, and the written document of the petition itself. The entry office covers the function and the physical place where the function takes place.

The criteria followed to organize the concept are based on assumptions external to the language. Such assumptions must be explicit, so that the user may know the perspective according to which concepts are differentiated. This is the role of ontology, to explain which we need to remember that in the lexicon of JurWordNet we have inserted terms used in law handbooks with systematic purposes, usually too generic for the search of the juridical data, which make up integrating categories suitable for the dominion. For example, terms used in the search, such as foundation, association, committee, and so on, are grouped in the class institution, which is a concept created by doctrine that does not appear among the lexical corpora.

Terms such as institution, gathering the top level of JurWordNet's taxonomical trees, coincide with the basic legal entities, which may be considered as common to all the juridical systems. We can give them a minimum series of properties shared by all the specific meanings of each system and/or language. They create Core Ontology for law with the function of organizing JurWordNet's conceptual taxonomies based on criteria external to the language. Having a nucleus of shared juridical knowledge allows matching, integration, and comprehension of elaborate juridical knowledge, created by particular juridical systems, and grants that the criteria used to organize the concept classes are based on the law, and may be shared. They are also consistent with a pre-defined social ontology. (Link with the role of ontology).

This process also allows setting a mapping among terms of different languages. The approach is particularly effective in the juridical dominion, where the correspondence in not among terms of different languages, but among concepts, or often, juridical bodies. In the legislation domain, it is appropriate to speak about multi-language versions of a law text, more than translations. Shifting the attention from the linguistic expression to its content allows comparing concepts through properties and metaproperties, and to assess not only whether the concept itself occurs in different contexts, but also how the concept was processed in different norm structures. As an example, the Italian entry capacità giuridica has no equivalent in English, as there is no general theory on legal capacity within the common law that may be compared to the body within the Italian legislation.

The European Commission, responsive to the need of a means allowing the access to cross-language normative information, has recently financed within the e-Content program, the LOIS project (web site address), which will develop a multi-language database made up of law wordnets in five European languages (English, German, Portuguese, Czech, and Italian, linked by English).