RussNet project

RussNet is a lexical semantic database for the Russian language. It is developed by the Department of Applied and Mathematical Linguistics, Faculty of Philology at Saint-Petersburg State University.

The project started in 1999. Since then, 57 linguists took part in the project, the core group including 8.

The aim of the project is to develop a general-purpose resource:

• presenting the lexical system of Russian as a whole;
• covering the basic vocabulary of the modern Russian language;
• including semantic, semantic-grammatical, semantic-derivational relations between words, which are relevant for Russian.

Being the wordnet-type lexicon, RussNet has inherited most of the features of Princeton WordNet, EuroWordNet components and other similar resources:

• RussNet contains 4 main Part-of-Speach files: nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs.
• The basic unit of RussNet is a synset (a set of synonyms) representing one lexicalized concept in Russian.
• Synsets are linked by various paradigmatic and syntagmatic relations.

Current State of RussNet

At present we are mostly elaborating the language-internal structure of RussNet and not focusing on Inter-Lingual-Index.

Current Size of RussNet

Total amount - more than 5500 synsets, including about

• 1300 noun synsets,
• 1900 verb synsets,
• 1100 adjective synsets,
• 200 adverb synsets.

We also have prepared ~10-12 thousands synsets for final editing.