OpenHowNet: An Open Sememe-based Lexical Knowledge Base

Abstract

In this paper, we present an open sememe-based lexical knowledge base OpenHowNet. Based on well-known HowNet, OpenHowNet comprises three components: core data which is composed of more than 100 thousand senses annotated with sememes, OpenHowNet Web which gives a brief introduction to OpenHowNet as well as provides online exhibition of OpenHowNet information, and OpenHowNet API which includes several useful APIs such as accessing OpenHowNet core data and drawing sememe tree structures of senses. In the main text, we first give some backgrounds including definition of sememe and details of HowNet. And then we introduce some previous HowNet and sememe-based research works. Last but not least, we detail the constituents of OpenHowNet and their basic features and functionalities. Additionally, we briefly make a summary and list some future works.