On the Utility of WordNet for Ontology Alignment: Is it Really Worth It?

Many ontology alignment algorithms augment syntactic matching with the use of WordNet (WN) in order to improve their performance. The advantage of using WN in alignment seems apparent. However, we strike a more cautionary note. We analyze the utility of WN in the context of the reduction in precision and increase in execution time that its use entails. For this analysis, we particularly focus on real-world ontologies. We report distinct trends in the performance of WN-based alignment in comparison with alignment that uses syntactic matching only. We analyze the trends and their implications, and provide useful insights on the types of ontology pair for which WN-based alignment may potentially be worthwhile and those types where it may not be.