RoWordNet – A Python API for the Romanian WordNet

The paper presents (1) a new library (API) that provides easy access to the Romanian WordNet and (2) an application based on the API to perform embedded vector retrofitting. The new API (further referred to as RoWn)is built in Python and offers direct access to all the data provided in the Romanian WordNet. It implements all basic I/O and query operations. As RoWnis based on a directed graph structure powered by the versatile networkx library, users are provided with the groundwork to implement powerful graph algorithms. The second part of the paper presents an application built on RoWn: the process of vector retrofitting. “Retrofitting” refers to the semantic specialization of word vectors, a process of fine-tuning each vector under a specified constraint. We use the synonymy/antonymy relations extracted from RoWnto tune the word vectors under these semantic constraints, effectively specializing the vector space.