This article tries to explain our rule-based Arabic Named Entity recognition (NER) and classification system. It is based on lists of classified proper names (PN) and particularly on syntactico-semantic patterns resulting in fine classification of Arabic NE. These patterns use syntactico-semantic combination of morpho-syntactic and syntactic entities. It also uses lexical classification of trigger words and NE extensions. These linguistic data are essential not only to name entity extraction but also to the taxonomic classification and to determining the NE frontiers. Our method is also based on the contextualisation and on the notion of NE class attributes and values. Inspired from X-bar theory and immediate constituents, we built a rule-based NER system composed of five levels of syntactico-semantic combination. We also show how the fine NE annotations in our system output (XML database) is exploited in information retrieval and information extraction.
Evaluation of Information Retrieval and Text Mining Tools on Automatic Named Entity Extraction
