The paper investigates the extent of the support semi-automatic analysis can provide for the specific task of assigning Hohfeldian relations of Duty, using the General Architecture for Text Engineering tool for the automated extraction of Duty instances and the bearers of associated roles. The outcome of the analysis supports scholars in identifying Hohfeldian structures in legal text when performing close reading of the texts. A cyclic workflow involving automated annotation and expert feedback will incrementally increase the quality and coverage of the automatic extraction process, and increasingly reduce the amount of manual work required of the scholar.

In this paper, we discuss methods of measuring the performance of ontology-based information extraction systems. We focus particularly on the Balanced Distance Metric (BDM), a new metric we have proposed which aims to take into account the more flexible nature of ontologically-based applications. We first examine why traditional Precision and Recall metrics, as used for flat information extraction tasks, are inadequate when dealing with ontologies. We then describe the Balanced Distance Metric (BDM) which takes ontological similarity into account. Finally, we discuss a range of experiments designed to test the accuracy and usefulness of the BDM when compared with traditional metrics and with a standard distance-based metric.

Sumerian is a long-extinct language documented throughout the ancient MiddleEast, arguably the first language for which we have written evidence, and is a language isolate (i.e. no related languages have so far been identified). The Electronic Text Corpus of Sumerian Literature (ETCSL), based at theUniversity of Oxford, aims to make accessible on the web over 350 literary workscomposed during the late third and early second millennia BCE. The transliterations and translations can be searched, browsed and read online using the tools of the website. In this paper we describe the creation of linguistic analysis and corpus search tools for Sumerian, as part of the development of the ETCSL. This is designed to enable Sumerian scholars, students and interested laymen to analyse the texts online and electronically, and to further knowledge about the language.

The LOIS (Lexical Ontologies for legal Information Sharing) project The legal knowledge base resulting from the LOIS (Lexical Ontologies for legal Information Sharing) (Lexical Ontologies for legal Information Sharing) project consists of legal WordNets in six languages (Italian, Dutch, Portuguese, German, Czech, English). Its architecture is based on the EuroWordNet (EWN) framework (Vossen et al, 1997). Using the EWN framework assures compatibility of the LOIS WordNets with EWN, allowing them to function as an extension of EWN for the legal domain. For each legal system, the document-derived legal concepts are integrated into a taxonomy, which links into existing formal ontologies. These give the legal wordnets a first formal backbone, which can, in future, be further extended. The database consists of 33,000 synsets, and is aimed to be used in information retrieval, where it provides mono- and multi-lingual access to European legal databases for legal experts as well as for laymen. The LOIS knowledge base also provides a flexible, modular architecture that allows integration of multiple classification schemes, and enables the comparison of legal systems by exploring translation, equivalence and structure across the different legal wordnets.