Definition of Disambiguation in Language Studies

In linguistics, disambiguation is the process of determining which sense of a word is being used in a particular context. Also known as lexical disambiguation. In computational linguistics, this discriminative process is called word-sense disambiguation (WSD). Examples and Observations It so happens that our communication, in different languages alike, allows the same word form to be used to mean different things in individual communicative transactions. The consequence is that one has to figure out, in a particular transaction, the intended meaning of a given word among its potentially associated senses. While the ambiguities arising from such multiple form-meaning associations are at the lexical level, they often have to be resolved by means of a larger context from the discourse embedding the word. Hence the different senses of the word service could only be told apart if one could look beyond the word itself, as in contrasting the players service at Wimbledon with the waiters service in Sheraton. This process of identifying word meanings in a discourse is generally known as word sense disambiguation (WSD). (Oi Yee Kwong, New Perspectives on Computational and Cognitive Strategies for Word Sense Disambiguation. Springer, 2013) Lexical Disambiguation and Word-Sense Disambiguation (WSD) Lexical disambiguation in its broadest definition is nothing less than determining the meaning of every word in context, which appears to be a largely unconscious process in people. As a computational problem, it is often described as AI-complete, that is, a problem whose solution presupposes a solution to complete natural-language understanding or common-sense reasoning (Ide and VÃ ©ronis 1998). In the field of computational linguistics, the problem is generally called word sense disambiguation (WSD) and is defined as the problem of computationally determining which sense of a word is activated by the use of the word in a particular context. WSD is essentially a task of classification: word senses are the classes, the context provides the evidence, and each occurrence of a word is assigned to one or more of its possible classes based on the evidence. This is the traditional and common characterization of WSD that sees it as an explicit process of disambiguation with respect to a fixed inventory of word senses. Words are assumed to have a finite and discrete set of senses from a dictionary, a lexical knowledge base, or an ontology (in the latter, senses correspond to concepts that a word lexicalizes). Application-specific inventories can also be used. For instance, in a machine translation (MT) setting, one can treat word translations as word senses, an approach that is becom ing increasingly feasible because of the availability of large multi-lingual parallel corpora that can serve as training data. The fixed inventory of traditional WSD reduces the complexity of the problem, but alternative fields exist . . .. (Eneko Agirre and Philip Edmonds, Introduction. Word Sense Disambiguation: Algorithms and Applications. Springer, 2007) Homonymy and Disambiguation Lexical disambiguation is well suited particularly for cases of homonymy, for instance, an occurrence of bass must be mapped onto either of the lexical items bass1 or bass2, depending on the intended meaning. Lexical disambiguation implies a cognitive choice and is a task that inhibits comprehension processes. It should be distinguished from processes that lead to a differentiation of word senses. The former task is accomplished fairly reliably also without much contextual information while the latter is not (cf. Veronis 1998, 2001). It has also been shown that homonymous words, which require disambiguation, slow down lexical access, while polysemous words, which activate a multiplicity of word senses, speed up lexical access (Rodd e.a. 2002). However, both the productive modification of semantic values and the straightforward choice between lexically different items have in common that they require additional non-lexical information. (Peter Bosch, Productivity, Polysemy, and Predicate Indexicality. Logic, Language, and Computation: 6th International Tbilisi Symposium on Logic, Language, and Computation, ed. by Balder D. ten Cate and Henk W. Zeevat. Springer, 2007) Lexical Category Disambiguation and the Principle of Likelihood Corley and Crocker (2000) present a broad-coverage model of lexical category disambiguation based on the Principle of Likelihood. Specifically, they suggest that for a sentence consisting of words w0 . . . wn, the sentence processor adopts the most likely part-of-speech sequence t0 . . . tn. More specifically, their model exploits two simple probabilities: (i) the conditional probability of word wi given a particular part of speech ti, and (ii) the probability of ti given the previous part of speech ti-1. As each word of the sentence is encountered, the system assigns it that part-of-speech ti, which maximizes the product of these two probabilities. This model capitalizes on the insight that many syntactic ambiguities have a lexical basis (MacDonald et al., 1994), as in (3): (3) The warehouse prices/makes are cheaper than the rest. These sentences are temporarily ambiguous between a reading in which prices or makes is the main verb or part of a compound noun. After being trained on a large corpus, the model predicts the most likely part of speech for prices, correctly accounting for the fact that people understand price as a noun but makes as a verb (see Crocker Corley, 2002, and references cited therein). Not only does the model account for a range of disambiguation preferences rooted in lexical category ambiguity, it also explains why, in general, people are highly accurate in resolving such ambiguities. (Matthew W. Crocker, Rational Models of Comprehension: Addressing the Performance Paradox. Twenty-First Century Psycholinguistics: Four Cornerstones, ed. by Anne Cutler. Lawrence Erlbaum, 2005)

Deviant Behavior - 1512 Words

I’m on my way to Sociology class one day this semester, my Tuesday and Thursday 2:00pm session with Gloria Clay. I find myself in a bit of a rush this afternoon. Slept in late, had a lot of errands to run, lost track of time. At least I’m grateful that the weather is nice and the traffic is sparse today, but this doesn’t eliminate the fact that I’m not going to be on time for class. I am trying to stay relaxed in this situation but little do you know, I really hate running late for everything. It’s about time my lead foot kicks in-- I find myself exceeding the speed limit. I actually get halfway to school when I notice the sporadic movement of blue and red lights in my rear view mirror. So here I am, hanging out in the shoulder of I-95,†¦show more content†¦I have found another trigger for my deviant behavior: peer pressure. Peer influence has emerged over the last fifty years to be the chief source of values and behavioral influence in ado lescence, replacing the influence of adults. Although the level of deviance from peer group to peer group varies, the negative actions of one member in a group will increase the probability of other members taking part in similar behaviors. Affiliation with deviant peers predicts delinquent behavior more strongly than community, school, or family. Peer pressure is a major contributor to the deviant behavior of alcohol and drug use in young members of our society. Dealing with this peer pressure is a fact that I, and most teenagers must sometimes face. As I have matured, I have come across challenging decisions, and peer pressure plays a factor when people my own age try to influence my decisions. Peer pressure is a major excuse as to why teens experiment with drinking, and the use of alcohol by underage adolescents is deviant behavior. This use goes against the norms of society and its effects can be extremely negative. I vividly remember my first real interaction with peer pressu re and alcohol. I was in high school, not much older than fifteen years old. My friends were over and my mom wasn’t home that night. I can’t remember if it was my idea or not, but my friends were doing anything but opposing the idea of busting into my mom’s booze supply. I collapsed, gave in, peerShow MoreRelatedWhat Are Deviant Behavior?1452 Words   |  6 Pages Joe File Final Exam Deviant Behavior June 30, 2015 Professor Carlino What is Deviant Behavior? Week 1 Deviance is any behavior that violates social norms, and is usually sever enough to warrant disapproval from the majority of society. Deviance can be criminal or non†criminal. The sociological discipline that deals with behavior that violates laws is criminology. Today, society considers such activities as alcoholism, excessive gambling, being nude in public places, playing withRead MorePedophilia and Deviant Behavior1695 Words   |  7 Pagesï » ¿ Pedophilia and Deviant Behavior Sonja Johnson Sociology of Deviant Behavior Professor Grant Pikes Peak Community College August 3, 2014 There exists a group of people possessing what some refer to as a mental disorder, while others refer to it as a personality or behavioral disorder characterized by the urge to have sexual relations with those of a non-consenting age. Initially this paper will examine why exactly this is a deviant behavior. We will then go on to analyzeRead MoreDeviant Behavior And Deviant Behaviour Essay1186 Words   |  5 PagesTheories of deviant behavior Deviant behavior is described as acts or individual characters that are contrary to social norms. These behaviors are usually against set rule or authority laws. 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These values provide justification and motivation or for wantingRead More Deviant Behavior Essay1653 Words   |  7 PagesDeviant Behavior Deviant behavior refers to behavior that does not conform to norms, does not meet the expectations of a group of a society as a whole. After birth, children begin to experience situations with others. They are taught what he or she should and should not do, what is good or bad and what is right or wrong. Learning habits that conform to the customs and traditions of the groups into which the child is born develops a system of values. These values provide justification and motivationRead More Deviant Behavior Essay1058 Words   |  5 Pages DEVIANT BEHAVIOR nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;nbsp;Just about everyone has done something that someone else disapproves of. In fact, almost all of us have done something we ourselves have reservations or second thoughts about. Perhaps we’ve stolen something, or told a lie, or gossiped about another person in an especially nasty way. Maybe on occasion we’ve gotten drunk, of high, or driven too fast, or recklessly. Have we ever worn clothes that someone else thought was out of style, offensive, or uglyRead MoreIs Homosexuality a Deviant Behavior?1215 Words   |  5 Pageshomosexuality as a deviant behavior struck my attention. It is a topic of interest to me because I seen how things have changed over time. I found it to be interesting because there is a lot of different theories and studies against the homosexual community. Homosexuality connection can be the result of mental distress, genes and hormone, and lastly the environment where the person is developed. I chose to write about homosex uality and seek to answer the deviant behaviors in America. Homosexuality

Friendship free essay sample

A study of friendship in John Steinbecks classic novel Of Mice and Men. This paper analyzes the classic American novel by John Steinbeck, Of Mice and Men. It looks at the lives and relationship of the two main characters George and Lennie, as they drift from ranch to ranch as migrant farm workers. The paper provides biographical information about Steinbecks life. The author writes that Of Mice and Men is a novel of crushed hope and the cruel certainty of the American Dream. It is a story of friendship between two men, one apparently worldly but in fact faithful to his companion, a nice fella who means no harm but does not know his own power and does bad things as he likes to handle and stroke soft, warm animals, whether the fur of mice rabbits and puppies or the hair of women. All who observe them come to desire the bond between George and Lennie, as they are not like other guys. We will write a custom essay sample on Friendship or any similar topic specifically for you Do Not WasteYour Time HIRE WRITER Only 13.90 / page Each one begins by imagining the connection between the little guy and the big one, but their suspicions are soon overcome by Lennies simplicity and Georges protecting love for him, a love that as a final point swells to killing his friend so that no one can hurt him.