ONTOLOGY CONSTRUCTION

Disclosed are methods in which ontologies are automatically (i.e., with little or no human interaction) constructed from data. The constructed ontology may be provided for use by an application or device. An ontology may be constructed as follows. Firstly, a lexical graph is constructed. Secondly, a concept-detection process is performed on the lexical graph to detect concepts (prominent terms) in the lexical graph. Thirdly, a clustering method is performed on the lexical graph to form groups of concepts. Fourthly, relationships between the concepts are determined based on the interconnections of the concepts in the groups. Lastly, the concepts and detected relationships therebetween are structured using a formal ontology specification.