Hugo Liu (2003). Unpacking meaning from words. Modeling and Using Context (Eds. Blackburn et al.), LNCS 2680, 218–232, Springer.
Liu, H. (2003). Unpacking meaning from words. In Blackburn et al. (Eds.), Modeling and Using Context (LNCS 2680, pp. 218–232). Springer.
@incollection{liu2003unpacking,
author = {Hugo Liu},
title = {Unpacking meaning from words},
booktitle = {Modeling and Using Context},
editor = {Blackburn et al.},
series = {LNCS 2680},
pages = {218--232},
publisher = {Springer},
doi = {10.1007/3-540-44958-2_18},
url = {https://starheartsong.com/papers/pdf/CONTEXT2003-BubbleLexicon.pdf},
year = {2003}
}Ordinary dictionaries divide a word into fixed senses; this paper asks how a machine might instead assemble the meaning needed for a particular situation. The Bubble Lexicon places words and concepts in a weighted network of lexical and everyday knowledge, then uses spreading activation to select a context-sensitive neighborhood around a term. In trials over an adapted OMCSNet of roughly 140,000 items, contexts such as money, culture, and transportation changed the readings of phrases including “fast horse,” “cheap apartment,” and “talk music.” The examples show both the promise and the fragility of the method: sparse links and exaggerated context weights could produce arbitrary associations. This was an implemented exploratory model, not a statistical evaluation.