Disambiguating Noun Groupings with Respect to WordNet Senses

TL;DR

This paper introduces a method for automatic sense disambiguation of nouns within related word sets, leveraging WordNet senses and enabling higher-level categorization, with illustrative examples and evaluation.

Contribution

It proposes a novel approach for sense disambiguation in noun groupings using WordNet, accommodating fine-grained senses and higher-level categories.

Findings

Effective disambiguation of nouns with respect to WordNet senses

Ability to assign higher-level WordNet categories

Demonstrated through illustrative examples and evaluation

Abstract

Word groupings useful for language processing tasks are increasingly available, as thesauri appear on-line, and as distributional word clustering techniques improve. However, for many tasks, one is interested in relationships among word {\em senses}, not words. This paper presents a method for automatic sense disambiguation of nouns appearing within sets of related nouns --- the kind of data one finds in on-line thesauri, or as the output of distributional clustering algorithms. Disambiguation is performed with respect to WordNet senses, which are fairly fine-grained; however, the method also permits the assignment of higher-level WordNet categories rather than sense labels. The method is illustrated primarily by example, though results of a more rigorous evaluation are also presented.