Specialist Synonyms

Why provide Specialist Synonyms?

You might wish to provide Specialist Synonyms if ...

• ... there is a word or group of words that is important but may be typed in different ways, abbreviated or inconsistently preceded by 'a' or the' e.g.

  • 'rac :'royal automobile club;auto mobile club;the auto club;r.a.c.; the rac;the r.a.c.',
  • uk : 'the united kingdom;united kingdom;u.k.;britain;great britain'

• ... there is a specialist term unlikely to be included in talkigy's general synonym bank, or where variations of a word are equivalent in the context of your automated dialogue. e.g.:

  • 'woodpecker' : 'wood pecker;lesser spotted woodpecker',
  • 'parakeet' : 'budgie;budgerigar',

• ... you think certain specialist terms are likely to be misspelled. e.g. :

  • 'counterfeit': 'counterfiet;counterfeet',

Examples

For an automated dialogue about a cat called Poppy:

• 'cat' : 'moggy;pussycat;pussy cat;pussy;kitty;kitty kat;puss;puss puss;kitty kitty;feline;',
• 'male' : 'tom cat;tomcat',
• 'you' :'poppy;this ai',

For an automated dialogue about a property available to rent:

• 'flat' : 'the apartment;the appartment;appartment;the flat;the apartment;appartment;accomodation;the accommodation;accommadation',
• 'garden': 'yard;court yard;courtyard;courtyard garden;court yard garden;outdoor space',
• 'take': 'live in;stay at;stay in;rent;book;reserve;reservation;booking',

Format

Provide your Specialist Synonyms in a text file in as per the below example:

'flat' : 'the apartment;the appartment;appartment;the flat;the appartment;apartment;accomodation;the accommodation',

'garden': 'yard;court yard;courtyard;courtyard garden;court yard garden;outdoor space',

'take': 'live in;stay at;stay in;loan;lend;occupy',

Note the following:

• Each term and its related synonyms should be on a single line
• The target word, a single word, comes first in quote marks, then a colon ':', then the substitution terms in quote marks, finally a comma at the end of the line
• If you have more than one synonym, it should be separated from others with a semi-colon ';'.
• Between the semi-colons, there may be up to three words separated by spaces. So while 'lesser spotted woodpecker' is an acceptable word group, talkigy will not be able to process a synonym for 'lesser spotted wood pecker'
• Synonym handling is not case sensitive, so there is no need to provide alternative capitalisation.
• The target word should be a single word with no punctuation marks or spaces.
• talkigy typically replaces commas and full stops with spaces, so if you include "'abc':'a b c'," then all the following will be treated as the same 'abc': A-B-C, a.b.c, Abc, A-B.c, A,B, c,
• '&' is equivalent to 'and'
• Multiple spaces are equivalent to a single space
• talkigy uses a word stemmer so word suffixes are removed. So for example: liking running and swims is understood by talkigy to be the same as like runs and swimming (without the need to provide any Specialist Synonyms).
• Do not worry about covering every possible Specialist Synonym - or being too precise about whether a term is a precise synonym or not. The way talkigy analyses a stimulus is based on a number of clues and if certain words are not matched exactly - or a misinterpreted with the wrong synonym, it should not matter too much. Focus on a small number of priority terms that are key to your topic.
• Do not worry if your formatting is not quite right, talkigy will fix it if necessary.