Semantic Relations
The semantic relations between verbs used for the implementation in GermaNet differ from those in WordNet in several respects:
We allow for the causation relation between verbs and adjectives as well, in order to account for the fact that causative verbs systematically relate a verb to its resultative state (e.g. zerschlagen (to smash something) causes something to be zerstört (destroyed)).
We try to use the entailment relation only when the semantics of the verb suggests this very strongly. We do not encode entailment if only one aspect of the verb supports an entailment relation (e.g. bekommen (ein Kind) entails zeugen).
The association relation is a rather vague indication of relationship that is not further unspecified (e.g. haushalten is_related_to sparen).
The approach taken in GermaNet differs explicitly form WordNet in that it makes extensive use of cross-classification. This leads to a much denser wordnet. Furthermore, it allows a classification of concepts according to different semantic criteria. For example, verbs involving change of location can be classified according to whether they specify the activity of an agent/theme/group and at the same time according to transitivity/intransitivity and specification of a particular direction.
