Supersense Tagging of Unknown Nouns in WordNet

We present a new framework for classifying common nouns that extends named-entity classification. We used a fixed set of 26 semantic labels, which we called supersenses. These are the labels used by lexicographers developing WordNet. This framework has a number of practical advantages. We show how information contained in the dictionary can be used as additional training data that improves accuracy in learning new nouns. We also define a more realistic evaluation procedure than cross-validation.