Patterns in Verbal Polysemy

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Patterns in Verbal Polysemy

• Rebecca Green
• Lydia Fraser
• College of Information Studies
• University of Maryland

2
Overview

• Introduction
• Motivation
• Previous work
• Methodology
• Results
• Conclusion

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Introduction

• Verbal polysemy
• Semantic relationships between verb senses
• Regular / systematic polysemy
• Nouns
• Verbs

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Verbal polysemy

• 1 She rubbed the window with a cloth.
• 2 He rubbed his hands together.
• 3 My shoe is rubbing.
• 4 He rubbed polish on the table.
• 5 Youve rubbed a hole in the elbow of your
  jacket.
• 6 Rub your hair dry.
• 7 Rub the mud off your boots.

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Semantic relationships between verb senses

• She rubbed the window with a cloth. vs. He
  rubbed his hands together.
• How they are alike
• 2 surfaces slide against each other, with
  pressure, to and fro or round and round
• How they differ
• Whether both surfaces are in motion or whether
  only one surface is in motion

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Systematic polysemy

• Animal / food from animal
• Chicken
• Fish
• Turkey

• Tree / fruit from tree
• Apple
• Cherry
• Lemon

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Motivation

• Why polysemy matters
• Why verb polysemy matters

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Why polysemy matters

• Effect of polysemy on retrieval
• precision (likely), if not controlled
• precision (likely), if controlled
• recall (possibly)
• Polysemy affects
• Natural language
• Controlled vocabulary

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Why verb polysemy matters

• Verbs in search/retrieval
• Verb-derived nominals in precoordinate subject
  headings, e.g., Fluid copying processes, Marriage
  settlements
• Faceted schemes Energy facets
• Entity-relationship modeling Relationships

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Previous work

• Word sense disambiguation
• (computational linguistics)
• Radial category analysis
• (cognitive linguistics--Lakoff)
• Regular polysemy
• (lexical semantics--Apresjan)

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Methodology

• Source of data Longman Dictionary of
  Contemporary English
• Selection of verb sense pairs (ca. 600)
• Verb clustering (ca. 125)
• Sense-linked, using, e.g., such, this (ca. 225)
• Random (ca. 250)
• Analysis
• Pass 1 Free
• Pass 2 Normalized

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Results

• Spotlight on rub
• Summary of results
• Survey of major semantic relationship types
  underlying verb polysemy

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Definitions of senses of rub

• 1 to slide one surface with pressure, to and fro
  or round and round against (another)
• 2 to slide (2 surfaces against each other) in
  this way
• 3 (of a surface) to slide in this way
• 4 to put (paste or liquid) on / over / into (a
  surface) in this way
• 5 to cause (a hole) in this way
• 6 to make (something) (clean, dry, etc.) in this
  way
• 7 to cause to disappear in this way

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Rub connections

2
3
4
1
7
6
5
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Summary

• gt 70 of all verb sense pairs
• 6 semantic relationship classes
• Each of these occurs 48 times
• Others may also be important

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Metaphor

• Core sense in physical domain metaphoric sense
  in abstract (e.g., cognitive, social, emotional)
• Dont typically generalize to other contexts
• Examples
• Basking in the sun vs. basking in the limelight
• Cattle being branded vs. people being branded by
  their experience

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Hierarchy

• Autotroponomy (Fellbaum) One sense of verb is
  more generic than another of its senses
• Examples
• Arcing (undifferentiated physical context) vs.
  arcing (electrical context)
• Drinking (any liquid) vs. drinking (alcoholic
  beverage)

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Antonomy

• Only distinguishing components are antonymous
• Examples
• Remarry same vs. different person
• Answer question verbally vs. non-verbally (e.g.,
  with a smile)
• Nestling in (inanimate) vs. into (animate) a
  location

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Shift in focus

• Diathesis alternation (Levin)
• Examples
• Coin to make (metal) into coins vs. to make
  (coins) from metal
• Confess to make (ones faults) known to a
  priest or God vs. (of a priest) to hear the
  confession of a person

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Act / result

• Act (action, activity) vs. typical result of act
• Verb sense pairs linked with this often of this
  type
• Example
• Mine to dig or work a mine vs. to obtain by
  digging from a mine

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Causative

• Is act/result a kind of causative relationship?
  (Act causes result.)
• Example
• Drown to die by being under water for a long
  time vs. to kill by holding under water for a
  long time

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Rub revisited

• Semantic opposition
• 1 vs. 2 at rest vs. in motion
• 1 vs. 4 solid vs. non-solid
• Act/result
• 1 vs. 5, 6, and 7
• Shift in focus
• 1 vs. 3

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Conclusion

• Cross-linguistic implications
• Information retrieval implications

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Cross-linguistic implications

• Fundamental nature of semantic relationship types
• Metaphor
• Lexical relationships
• Metonymic transfer
• Verb senses of English rub mirrored in French
  frotter, German reiben

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Information retrieval implications

• Thesaurus construction
• Should the semantic relationships between senses
  of polysemous words be recognized explicitly?
• Searching
• Precision
• Recall