---
title: "Bridging the Gap between Ontologies and Dictionaries — McCrae 2026"
description: "It struggles to describe a meaning that cannot be reduced to a single ontology element. 28 references."
authors: ["John P. McCrae", "Jorge Gracia", "Fahad Khan", "Philipp Cimiano"]
year: 2026
venue: "LDL 2026 (Linked Data in Linguistics, LREC 2026, Palma)"
source: "https://aclanthology.org/2026.ldl-1.8/"
doi: "10.63317/34udc9epj535"
licence: "CC BY-NC 4.0"
licence_url: "https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/"
summary_licence: "Elamur Cosmic License"
canonical: "https://research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/mccrae-2026-ontolex-new-core/"
---
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# Bridging the Gap between Ontologies and Dictionaries: Requirements and Implementation of a New Core for OntoLex-Lemon

**Authors:** [John P. McCrae](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/john-p-mccrae/), Jorge Gracia, [Fahad Khan](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/fahad-khan/) and [Philipp Cimiano](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/authors/philipp-cimiano/) · **Year:** 2026 · **Venue:** LDL 2026 (Linked Data in Linguistics, LREC 2026, Palma) · **Licence:** [CC BY-NC 4.0](https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/)

**Links:** [Publisher's page](https://aclanthology.org/2026.ldl-1.8/) · [PDF](https://aclanthology.org/2026.ldl-1.8.pdf) · [DOI 10.63317/34udc9epj535](https://doi.org/10.63317/34udc9epj535)

## Summary
OntoLex-Lemon appeared in 2016 and has since become the de facto standard for publishing dictionaries, terminology databases and lexicons as Linked Data. Since then the model has hardly changed. It is widely used (Wikidata, BabelNet, Open English WordNet, IATE), but the community has identified several gaps. The model poorly captures the complex structure of dictionaries with nested entries. It struggles to describe a meaning that cannot be reduced to a single ontology element. It also lacks means for retrodigitized editions. The authors describe how the W3C Ontology-Lexica Community Group gathered requirements. First there was an open call on the mailing list, then the work was carried out by three thematic subgroups, and proposals were discussed at regular teleconferences. In this way fifteen requirements were identified. For each one a solution is proposed: new modelling, moving constructs from the lexicog module into the core, changing axioms, or leaving everything as is. The updated core is meant to align better with DMLex and TEI Lex-0 while not breaking compatibility with already published data. This is the first major revision of the standard. The changes are still under discussion and must be finally approved by the group.

## Key points
- 15 requirements were identified. Among them: linking a sense to a specific word form (such as the plural "airs" or the pair cow/cattle), multiple POS in a single entry (important, in particular, for Basque), usage examples, diachronic and diatopic relations, sense order, senses without an ontology, definitions, cross-references, usage notes, sources, reliability and data status.
- Table 1 groups the solutions by type: new modelling, import from a module (in particular FormRestriction from lexicog), axiomatic change, partial transfer, no change.
- Three subgroups worked on the revision: lexicography, terminology (TBX, IATE), and the connection to other models (ISO/TC 37 LMF, DMLex, TEI Lex-0).
- The OntoLex-Lemon ecosystem includes the SynSem, Decomp, VarTrans and Lime modules, as well as the later lexicog, FrAC and morph. Data categories are usually taken from LexInfo, which is edited as CSV files on GitHub.
- The largest adoption of the model is the Lexeme type in Wikidata: millions of entries in hundreds of languages.

*Our summary of the paper, in our own words — not its text. The work belongs to its authors; read it at the links above.*

Fields: [Linguistics & languages](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/shelves/linguistics/)

Topics: [🕸️ Knowledge graphs & ontologies](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/topics/knowledge-graphs/)

## Cite

Cite as: John P. McCrae, Jorge Gracia, Fahad Khan and Philipp Cimiano. 2026. Bridging the Gap between Ontologies and Dictionaries: Requirements and Implementation of a New Core for OntoLex-Lemon. LDL 2026 (Linked Data in Linguistics, LREC 2026, Palma).

The paper itself, not this page. BibTeX from the library's record of the work.

```bibtex
@inproceedings{mccrae2026bridging,
  title = {{Bridging the Gap between Ontologies and Dictionaries: Requirements and Implementation of a New Core for OntoLex-Lemon}},
  author = {John P. McCrae, Jorge Gracia, Fahad Khan and Philipp Cimiano},
  booktitle = {LDL 2026 (Linked Data in Linguistics, LREC 2026, Palma)},
  year = {2026},
  doi = {10.63317/34udc9epj535},
  url = {https://doi.org/10.63317/34udc9epj535}
}
```

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## References

28 references, 4 of them with a card of ours. ↗ leads to the work, «find» searches for one we have no id for yet.

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2. Francis Bond, Piek Vossen, John P. McCrae, and Christiane Fellbaum. 2016. CILI: the collaborative interlingual index. In Proceedings of the Global WordNet Conference 2016. [our card](https://md.research.elamur.ai/free/en/papers/bond-2016-cili-collaborative-interlingual-index/)
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6. Christian Chiarcos, Katerina Gkirtzou, Fahad Khan, Penny Labropoulou, Marco Passarotti, and Matteo Pellegrini. 2022c. Computational morphology with OntoLex-morph. In Proceedings of the 8th Workshop on Linked Data in Linguistics within the 13th Language Resources and Evaluation Conference, pages 78–8… [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Christian+Chiarcos%2C+Katerina+Gkirtzou%2C+Fahad+Khan%2C+Penny+Labropoulou%2C+Marco+Passarotti%2C+and+Matteo+Pellegrini%2E+2022c%2E+Computational+morphology+with+OntoLex%2Dmorph%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+8th+Workshop+on)
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8. Philipp Cimiano, Paul Buitelaar, John McCrae, and Michael Sintek. 2011. Lexinfo: A declarative model for the lexicon-ontology interface. Web Semantics: Science, Services and Agents on the World Wide Web, 9(1):29–51. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Philipp+Cimiano%2C+Paul+Buitelaar%2C+John+McCrae%2C+and+Michael+Sintek%2E+2011%2E+Lexinfo%3A+A+declarative+model+for+the+lexicon%2Dontology+interface%2E+Web+Semantics%3A+Science%2C+Services+and+Agents+on+the+World+Wide+W)
9. Maud Ehrmann, Francesco Cecconi, Daniele Vannella, John Philip McCrae, Philipp Cimiano, and Roberto Navigli. 2014. Representing multilingual data as linked data: the case of BabelNet 2.0. In Proceedings of the Ninth International Conference on Language Resources and Evaluation, LREC 2014, Reykjavik,… [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Maud+Ehrmann%2C+Francesco+Cecconi%2C+Daniele+Vannella%2C+John+Philip+McCrae%2C+Philipp+Cimiano%2C+and+Roberto+Navigli%2E+2014%2E+Representing+multilingual+data+as+linked+data%3A+the+case+of+BabelNet+2%2E0%2E+In+Proceedin)
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13. Paula Diez Ibarbia, Patricia Martín-Chozas, and Elena Montiel-Ponsoda. 2025. Bringing IATE into the semantic web family. In Proceedings of the 5th Conference on Language, Data and Knowledge: The 5th OntoLex Workshop, pages 12–17. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Paula+Diez+Ibarbia%2C+Patricia+Mart%C3%ADn%2DChozas%2C+and+Elena+Montiel%2DPonsoda%2E+2025%2E+Bringing+IATE+into+the+semantic+web+family%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+5th+Conference+on+Language%2C+Data+and+Knowledge%3A+The+5th+O)
14. Bettina Klimek, John McCrae, Maxim Ionov, James K. Tauber, Christian Chiarcos, Julia Bosque-Gil, and Paul Buitelaar. 2019. The OntoLex-lemon morphology module. In Proceedings of the Sixth Biennial Conference on Electronic Lexicography (eLex 2019), Sintra, Portugal. [find](https://scholar.google.com/scholar?q=Bettina+Klimek%2C+John+McCrae%2C+Maxim+Ionov%2C+James+K%2E+Tauber%2C+Christian+Chiarcos%2C+Julia+Bosque%2DGil%2C+and+Paul+Buitelaar%2E+2019%2E+The+OntoLex%2Dlemon+morphology+module%2E+In+Proceedings+of+the+Sixth+Biennial+Con)
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