XLVI. StuTS 

All that glisters is not GOLD. Toward an ontology for linguistic description

Abstract:

“All that glisters is not gold; Often have you heard that told.” (W. Shakespeare). What you probably haven’t heard told so often about are ontologies, in particular one abbreviated GOLD (General Ontology for Linguistic Description). In a nutshell, it is one attempt to create a uniform conceptual system that will serve as a foundation to apply Semantic Web techniques to linguistic resources and facilitate the interoperability of different corpora and data sets.
After a brief informal introduction to ontologies we will look at the GOLD project in some detail -  its basic ideas, its ambitious goals and serious problems. We will also mention similar developments and, more generally, consider the significance of ontologies for working with the ever growing amount of digital linguistic resources on the Web.
In the discussion part, we could speculate on the reasons why the GOLD doesn’t “glister” very bright, i.e. why it isn’t popular nor even known to most linguists.