Semantic Interpretation and the Resolution of Ambiguity

Semantic Interpretation and the Resolution of Ambiguity PDF Author: Graeme Hirst
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 9780521428989
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 284

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Book Description
Semantic interpretation and the resolution of ambiguity presents an important advance in computer understanding of natural language. While parsing techniques have been greatly improved in recent years, the approach to semantics has generally improved in recent years, the approach to semantics has generally been ad hoc and had little theoretical basis. Graeme Hirst offers a new, theoretically motivated foundation for conceptual analysis by computer, and shows how this framework facilitates the resolution of lexical and syntactic ambiguities. His approach is interdisciplinary, drawing on research in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, montague semantics, and cognitive psychology.

Resolving Semantic Ambiguity

Resolving Semantic Ambiguity PDF Author: David S. Gorfein
Publisher: Springer Science & Business Media
ISBN: 1461235960
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 342

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Book Description
Resolving Semantic Ambiguity arrrays the work of leading theorists on the issues surrounding the meaning and interpretation of ambiguous text. The chapters are organized around three major themes: (1) retrieval, (2) representation of words, and (3) text as a context. The book offers a number of new challenges to the role of context in language processing, some striking new evidence on the repetition of homographs in different contexts, and new approaches to resolution capable of being incorporated into either modular or network models. In several papers the problem of ambiguity is extended to include the problem of weak ambiguity and understanding text themes. The book provides a unique starting point for researchers approaching the problems of meaning in cognitive science, psychology, and computational linguistics.

Semantic Ambiguity and Underspecification

Semantic Ambiguity and Underspecification PDF Author: Kees van Deemter
Publisher: Center for the Study of Language and Information Publications
ISBN: 9781575860282
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 296

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Book Description
In the winter of 1993-1994, essays were commissioned on the topic of ambiguity and underspecification. All papers received were subjected to a thorough review process. The present volume, comprising ten self-contained papers and an introductory chapter, is the result. Natural language is known for the ambiguity of its expressions. Whereas artificial forms of communication tend to be designed in such a way that ambiguity is reduced to a minimum, natural language is ambiguous at various 'levels' of interpretation. At a low (e.g., speech recognition) level, a signal can be ambiguous between various utterances; at a higher (semantic) level, a fully recognised utterance can be used to express various different propositions; and at an even higher (pragmatic) level, a proposition may be used for various different purposes. The present volume focuses on ambiguities of the second kind, which are sometimes called semantic ambiguities, or mostly just ambiguities, when there is no likelihood of confusion.

Lexical Ambiguity Resolution

Lexical Ambiguity Resolution PDF Author: Geert Adriaens
Publisher: Morgan Kaufmann
ISBN: 9780934613507
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 532

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Book Description
The most frequently used words in English are highly ambiguous; for example, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary lists 94 meanings for the word "run" as a verb alone. Yet people rarely notice this ambiguity. Solving this puzzle has commanded the efforts of cognitive scientists for many years. The solution most often identified is "context": we use the context of utterance to determine the proper meanings of words and sentences. The problem then becomes specifying the nature of context and how it interacts with the rest of an understanding system. The difficulty becomes especially apparent in the attempt to write a computer program to understand natural language. Lexical ambiguity resolution (LAR), then, is one of the central problems in natural language and computational semantics research. A collection of the best research on LAR available, this volume offers eighteen original papers by leading scientists. Part I, Computer Models, describes nine attempts to discover the processes necessary for disambiguation by implementing programs to do the job. Part II, Empirical Studies, goes into the laboratory setting to examine the nature of the human disambiguation mechanism and the structure of ambiguity itself. A primary goal of this volume is to propose a cognitive science perspective arising out of the conjunction of work and approaches from neuropsychology, psycholinguistics, and artificial intelligence--thereby encouraging a closer cooperation and collaboration among these fields. Lexical Ambiguity Resolution is a valuable and accessible source book for students and cognitive scientists in AI, psycholinguistics, neuropsychology, or theoretical linguistics.

Lexical Ambiguity Resolution

Lexical Ambiguity Resolution PDF Author: Steven L. Small
Publisher: Elsevier
ISBN: 0080510132
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 529

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Book Description
The most frequently used words in English are highly ambiguous; for example, Webster's Ninth New Collegiate Dictionary lists 94 meanings for the word "run" as a verb alone. Yet people rarely notice this ambiguity. Solving this puzzle has commanded the efforts of cognitive scientists for many years. The solution most often identified is "context": we use the context of utterance to determine the proper meanings of words and sentences. The problem then becomes specifying the nature of context and how it interacts with the rest of an understanding system. The difficulty becomes especially apparent in the attempt to write a computer program to understand natural language. Lexical ambiguity resolution (LAR), then, is one of the central problems in natural language and computational semantics research. A collection of the best research on LAR available, this volume offers eighteen original papers by leading scientists. Part I, Computer Models, describes nine attempts to discover the processes necessary for disambiguation by implementing programs to do the job. Part II, Empirical Studies, goes into the laboratory setting to examine the nature of the human disambiguation mechanism and the structure of ambiguity itself. A primary goal of this volume is to propose a cognitive science perspective arising out of the conjunction of work and approaches from neuropsychology, psycholinguistics, and artificial intelligence--thereby encouraging a closer cooperation and collaboration among these fields. Lexical Ambiguity Resolution is a valuable and accessible source book for students and cognitive scientists in AI, psycholinguistics, neuropsychology, or theoretical linguistics.

Bilingual Lexical Ambiguity Resolution

Bilingual Lexical Ambiguity Resolution PDF Author: Roberto R. Heredia
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
ISBN: 1107145619
Category : Education
Languages : en
Pages : 345

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Book Description
Sets out state-of-the-art methodological and theoretical advancements to shed light on how bilingual speakers comprehend ambiguous information.

Semantics

Semantics PDF Author: Steven Davis
Publisher: Oxford University Press
ISBN: 0198031335
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 936

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Book Description
Semantics: A Reader contains a broad selection of classic articles on semantics and the semantics/pragmatics interface. Comprehensive in the variety and breadth of theoretical frameworks and topics that it covers, it includes articles representative of the major theoretical frameworks within semantics, including: discourse representation theory, dynamic predicate logic, truth theoretic semantics, event semantics, situation semantics, and cognitive semantics. All the major topics in semantics are covered, including lexical semantics and the semantics of quantified noun phrases, adverbs, adjectives, performatives, and interrogatives. Included are classic papers in the field of semantics as well as papers written especially for the volume. The volume comes with an extensive introduction designed not only to provide an overview of the field, but also to explain the technical concepts the beginner will need to tackle before the more demanding articles. Semantics will have appeal as a textbook for upper level and graduate courses and as a reference for scholars of semantics who want the classic articles in their field in one convenient place.

The Generative Lexicon

The Generative Lexicon PDF Author: James Pustejovsky
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262661409
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 318

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Book Description
The first formally elaborated theory of a generative approach to word meaning, The Generative Lexicon lays the foundation for an implemented computational treatment of word meaning that connects explicitly to a compositional semantics. The Generative Lexicon presents a novel and exciting theory of lexical semantics that addresses the problem of the "multiplicity of word meaning"; that is, how we are able to give an infinite number of senses to words with finite means. The first formally elaborated theory of a generative approach to word meaning, it lays the foundation for an implemented computational treatment of word meaning that connects explicitly to a compositional semantics. In contrast to the static view of word meaning (where each word is characterized by a predetermined number of word senses) that imposes a tremendous bottleneck on the performance capability of any natural language processing system, Pustejovsky proposes that the lexicon becomes an active—and central—component in the linguistic description. The essence of his theory is that the lexicon functions generatively, first by providing a rich and expressive vocabulary for characterizing lexical information; then, by developing a framework for manipulating fine-grained distinctions in word descriptions; and finally, by formalizing a set of mechanisms for specialized composition of aspects of such descriptions of words, as they occur in context, extended and novel senses are generated. The subjects covered include semantics of nominals (figure/ground nominals, relational nominals, and other event nominals); the semantics of causation (in particular, how causation is lexicalized in language, including causative/unaccusatives, aspectual predicates, experiencer predicates, and modal causatives); how semantic types constrain syntactic expression (such as the behavior of type shifting and type coercion operations); a formal treatment of event semantics with subevents); and a general treatment of the problem of polysemy. Language, Speech, and Communication series

Ontological Semantics

Ontological Semantics PDF Author: Sergei Nirenburg
Publisher: MIT Press
ISBN: 9780262140867
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 458

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Book Description
A comprehensive theory-based approach to the treatment of text meaning in natural language processing applications.

Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society

Proceedings of the Eighteenth Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society PDF Author: Garrison W. Cottrell
Publisher: Routledge
ISBN: 1317729463
Category : Psychology
Languages : en
Pages : 908

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Book Description
This volume features the complete text of all regular papers, posters, and summaries of symposia presented at the 18th annual meeting of the Cognitive Science Society. Papers have been loosely grouped by topic, and an author index is provided in the back. In hopes of facilitating searches of this work, an electronic index on the Internet's World Wide Web is provided. Titles, authors, and summaries of all the papers published here have been placed in an online database which may be freely searched by anyone. You can reach the Web site at: http://www.cse.ucsd.edu/events/cogsci96/proceedings. You may view the table of contents for this volume on the LEA Web site at: http://www.erlbaum.com.