Experiments in Semantic Classification
Karen Spärck Jones · Mech. Transl. Comput. Linguistics · 1965
It is argued that a thesaurus, or classification, may be required in the resolution of multiple meaning for machine translation and allied purposes. The problem of constructing a thesaurus is then considered; this involves a method for defining the meanings or uses of words, and a procedure for classifying them. It is suggested that word uses may be defined in terms of their semantic relations with other words, and that the classification may be based on these relations; the paper then shows how the uses of words may be defined by synonyms to give rows or sets of synonymous word uses, which can then be grouped by their common words, to give thesauric classes. A discussion of the role of synonymy in language is followed by an examination of the way in which multiple meaning may be resolved by the use of a thesaurus of the kind described.