FROM SYNTACTIC-SEMANTIC TAGGING TO KNOWLEDGE DISCOVERY IN MEDICAL TEXTS

In the GALEN project, the syntactic-semantic tagger MultiTALE is upgra ded to extract knowledge from natural language surgical procedure expr essions. In this paper, we describe the methodology applied and show t hat out of a randomly selected sample of such expressions coming from the procedure axis of Snomed International, 81% could be analysed corr ectly. The problems encountered fall in three different categories: un usual grammatical configurations within the Snomed terms, insufficient domain knowledge and different categorisation of concepts and semanti c links in the domain and linguistic models used. It is concluded that the Multi-TALE system can be used to attach meaning to words that not have been encountered previously, but that an interface ontology medi ating between domain models and linguistic models is needed to arrive at a higher level of independence from both particular languages and f rom particular domains. (C) 1998 Elsevier Science Ireland Ltd. AU righ ts reserved.