LiDo RDF: From a Relational Database to a Linked Data Graph of Linguistic Terms and Bibliographic Data

LiDo RDF: From a Relational Database to a Linked Data Graph of Linguistic Terms and Bibliographic Data Bettina Klimek1,2,a, Robert Sch¨adlich1,2,a, Dustin Kr¨oger2,b, Edwin Knese2,b, Benedikt Elßmann2,b 1AKSW/KILT Research Group, InfAI and University of Leipzig, Germany 2Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Leipzig, Germany a{klimek, schaedlich}@informatik.uni-leipzig.de, b{dk33cuku, ek41cyvi, be57xocu}@studserv.uni-leipzig.de Abstract Forty years ago the linguist Dr. Christian Lehmann developed a framework for documenting linguistic terms, concepts and bibliographic data that resulted in the LiDo Terminological and Bibliographical Database (LiDo TBD). Since 2006 students and linguistic researchers benefit from the data by looking it up on the Web. Even though, the LiDo TBD is implemented as a relational database, its underlying framework aims at yielding a terminological network containing data nodes that are connected via specific relation edges in order to create an interrelated data graph. Now, with the emergence of Semantic Web technologies we were able to implement this pioneering work by converting the LiDo TBD relational database into a Linked Data graph. In this paper we present and describe the creation of the LiDo RDF dataset and introduce the LiDo RDF project. The goals of this project are to enable the direct use and reuse of the data both for the scientific research community and machine processing alike as well as to enable a valuable enrichment of already existing linguistic terminological and bibliographic data by including LiDo RDF in the LLOD cloud. Keywords: Lido Terminological and Bibliographical Database, linguistic concepts, linguistic terminology, linguistic bibliogra- phy, Linguistic Linked Open Data (LLOD) 1. Introduction The clarification of terminological problems is a prerequi- site for methodologically and scientifically sound linguistic research (Lehmann, 1996). Resources providing and defin- ing linguistic terminology are, therefore, of inestimable value because they practically assist the researcher in find- ing, understanding and reusing linguistic terms in the con- text of his work. Such a resource constitutes the LiDo Terminological and Bibliographical Database1 (Lehmann, 1996; Lehmann, 1976). Having started in year 1976, Christian Lehmann2 contributed his knowledge as a general and comparative linguist by manually collecting more than 4500 unique linguistic concepts, 15000 terms, 20000 books and 1200 journals. He structured this still ongoing data compilation effort within a relational database that interre- lates concept, term and bibliographical data which resulted in the LiDo website that is available since 2006. While this browsable Web interface is usable as a look-up resource, it provides no means that enable a citation of the terms and concepts by Christian Lehmann because the single entries are not rendered with specified URLs which are usually re- quired for citing Web resources. Subsequently, the LiDo RDF project emerged in order to enable the direct citation of the terminological data for re- searchers but also to empower machine processing. This is achieved by converting the relational database that is the source of the LiDo website (cf. footnote 1) into an RDF dataset3. The choice of the RDF format is motivated by the advantages of Linked Data in general, i.e. the interoper- 1http://linguistik.uni-regensburg.de: 8080/lido/Lido 2https://www.christianlehmann.eu/ …

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