Word sense
Encyclopedia
In linguistics
, a word sense is one of the meaning
s of a word
.
For example a dictionary
may have over 50 different meanings of the word play, each of these having a different meaning based on the context of the word usage in a sentence
. For example:
In each sentence we associate a different meaning of the word "play" based on hints the rest of the sentence gives us.
Computer
s or people that read words one at a time must use a process called word sense disambiguation
to find the correct meaning of a word.
is the property of having multiple senses. It differs from homonym
y, where two different words (lexeme
s) happen to have the same spelling
and pronunciation
.
Linguistics
Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
, a word sense is one of the meaning
Meaning (linguistics)
In linguistics, meaning is what is expressed by the writer or speaker, and what is conveyed to the reader or listener, provided that they talk about the same thing . In other words if the object and the name of the object and the concepts in their head are the same...
s of a word
Word
In language, a word is the smallest free form that may be uttered in isolation with semantic or pragmatic content . This contrasts with a morpheme, which is the smallest unit of meaning but will not necessarily stand on its own...
.
For example a dictionary
Dictionary
A dictionary is a collection of words in one or more specific languages, often listed alphabetically, with usage information, definitions, etymologies, phonetics, pronunciations, and other information; or a book of words in one language with their equivalents in another, also known as a lexicon...
may have over 50 different meanings of the word play, each of these having a different meaning based on the context of the word usage in a sentence
Sentence (linguistics)
In the field of linguistics, a sentence is an expression in natural language, and often defined to indicate a grammatical unit consisting of one or more words that generally bear minimal syntactic relation to the words that precede or follow it...
. For example:
In each sentence we associate a different meaning of the word "play" based on hints the rest of the sentence gives us.
Computer
Computer
A computer is a programmable machine designed to sequentially and automatically carry out a sequence of arithmetic or logical operations. The particular sequence of operations can be changed readily, allowing the computer to solve more than one kind of problem...
s or people that read words one at a time must use a process called word sense disambiguation
Word sense disambiguation
In computational linguistics, word-sense disambiguation is an open problem of natural language processing, which governs the process of identifying which sense of a word is used in a sentence, when the word has multiple meanings...
to find the correct meaning of a word.
Related terms
PolysemyPolysemy
Polysemy is the capacity for a sign or signs to have multiple meanings , i.e., a large semantic field.Charles Fillmore and Beryl Atkins’ definition stipulates three elements: the various senses of a polysemous word have a central origin, the links between these senses form a network, and ...
is the property of having multiple senses. It differs from homonym
Homonym
In linguistics, a homonym is, in the strict sense, one of a group of words that often but not necessarily share the same spelling and the same pronunciation but have different meanings...
y, where two different words (lexeme
Lexeme
A lexeme is an abstract unit of morphological analysis in linguistics, that roughly corresponds to a set of forms taken by a single word. For example, in the English language, run, runs, ran and running are forms of the same lexeme, conventionally written as RUN...
s) happen to have the same spelling
Spelling
Spelling is the writing of one or more words with letters and diacritics. In addition, the term often, but not always, means an accepted standard spelling or the process of naming the letters...
and pronunciation
Pronunciation
Pronunciation refers to the way a word or a language is spoken, or the manner in which someone utters a word. If one is said to have "correct pronunciation", then it refers to both within a particular dialect....
.
See also
- semanticsSemanticsSemantics is the study of meaning. It focuses on the relation between signifiers, such as words, phrases, signs and symbols, and what they stand for, their denotata....
- study of meaning - lexical semanticsLexical semanticsLexical semantics is a subfield of linguistic semantics. It is the study of how and what the words of a language denote . Words may either be taken to denote things in the world, or concepts, depending on the particular approach to lexical semantics.The units of meaning in lexical semantics are...
- the study of what the words of a language denote and how it is that they do this - word sense inductionWord sense inductionIn computational linguistics, word-sense induction or discrimination is an open problem of natural language processing, which concerns the automatic identification of the senses of a word...
- the task of automatically acquiring the senses of a target word - word sense disambiguationWord sense disambiguationIn computational linguistics, word-sense disambiguation is an open problem of natural language processing, which governs the process of identifying which sense of a word is used in a sentence, when the word has multiple meanings...
- the task of automatically associating a sense with a word in context - lexical substitutionLexical substitutionLexical substitution is the task of identifying a substitute for a word in the context of a sentence. For instance, given the following sentence: "After the match, replace any remaining fluid deficit to prevent chronic dehydration throughout the tournament", a substitute of game might be...
- the task of replacing a word in context with a lexical substitute - sememeSememeA sememe is a semantic language unit of meaning, correlative to a morpheme.A sememe is a proposed unit of transmitted or intended meaning; it is atomic or indivisible. A sememe can be the meaning expressed by a morpheme, such as the English pluralizing morpheme -s, which carries the sememic...
- unit of meaning - linguisticsLinguisticsLinguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context....
- the scientific study of language, which can be theoretical or applied. - sense and referenceSense and referenceSinn and bedeutung are usually translated, respectively, as sense and reference. Two different aspects of some terms' meanings, a term's reference is the object that the term refers to, while the term's sense is the way that the term refers to that object.Sinn and bedeutung were introduced by...
External links
- ”I don’t believe in word senses” -- Adam Kilgarriff (1997)
- WordNet(R) - A large lexical database of English words and their meanings maintained by the Princeton Cognitive Science Laboratory.