Web Query Expansion by WordNet

In this paper, we address a novel method of Web query expansion by using WordNet and TSN. WordNet is an online lexical dictionary which describes word relationships in three dimensions of Hypernym, Hyponym and Synonym. And their impacts to expansions are different. We provide quantitative descriptions of the query expansion impact along each dimension. However, WordNet may bring many noises for the expansion due to its collection independent characteristic. Furthermore, it may not catch current state of words and their relationships because of the explosive increase of the Web. To overcome those problems, collection-based TSN (Term Semantic Network) is created with respect to word co-occurrence in the collection. We use TSN both as a filter and a supplement for WordNet. We also provide a quantitatively study as what is the best way for the expansion with TSN. In our system, we combine the query expansions along each semantic dimension as our overall solution. Our experiments reveal that the combined expansion can provide a satisfied result for the Web query performance. The methodologies in this paper have been already employed in our Web image search engine system.