Toward an Integrative Approach for Making Sense Distinctions

Word senses are the fundamental unit of description in lexicography, yet it is rarely the case that different dictionaries reach any agreement on the number and definition of senses in a language. With the recent rise in natural language processing and other computational approaches there is an incr...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Frontiers in artificial intelligence 2022-02, Vol.5, p.745626-745626
Main Authors: McCrae, John P, Fransen, Theodorus, Ahmadi, Sina, Buitelaar, Paul, Goswami, Koustava
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Artificial Intelligence
cognitive semantics
Computation and Language
Computer Science
distributional semantics
Humanities and Social Sciences
lexicography
Linguistics
multilinguality
semantics
word senses
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Summary:Word senses are the fundamental unit of description in lexicography, yet it is rarely the case that different dictionaries reach any agreement on the number and definition of senses in a language. With the recent rise in natural language processing and other computational approaches there is an increasing demand for quantitatively validated sense catalogues of words, yet no consensus methodology exists. In this paper, we look at four main approaches to making sense distinctions: formal, cognitive, distributional, and intercultural and examine the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. We then consider how these may be combined into a single sound methodology. We illustrate this by examining two English words, "wing" and "fish," using existing resources for each of these four approaches and illustrate the weaknesses of each. We then look at the impact of such an integrated method and provide some future perspectives on the research that is necessary to reach a principled method for making sense distinctions.
ISSN:2624-8212
2624-8212
DOI:10.3389/frai.2022.745626