../

Ambiguity

Question 1: What are the different ambiguities in NLP?

  • Lexical
  • Syntactic
  • Semantic
  • Discourse
  • Pragmatic

Question 2: What is lexical ambiguity?

  • Lexical ambiguity deals with words that can belong to multiple assertions. A certain word may be both used as a noun or a verb or an adverb
  • Eg: Back
    • back door (adjective)
    • back away (adverb)
    • My back hurts (noun)

Question 3: What is syntactic ambiguity?

  • Syntactic ambiguity deals with sentences that can have multiple syntactic forms

  • Eg: I heard his cell phone ring in my office! ss 2023-09-22 at 10.22.34 AM

  • As we you can see, with the binocular modifies the lion ss 2023-09-22 at 10.24.33 AM

  • But this can also be parsed as with the binocular modifying the verb saw

Question 4: What is semantic ambiguity?

This deals with the actual interpretation of the sentence. The above example can be interpreted in two ways

  • I saw a lion using my binoculars
  • I saw a lion which was wearing a binocular

Question 5: What is metonyms?

a word, name, or expression used as a substitute for something else with which it is closely associated

Question 6: What are metaphors?

Refers to a thing by mentioning another

Question 7: Difference between metonyms and metaphors

  • Metonyms are words that are used to refer to something else
    • Eg: Pentagon refers to the US DoD office
  • Metaphors are words that used to refer to something else too
  • But the key difference is that metaphors suggest a likeliness
  • When we use phrases like the crown there is no connection between the crown and the monarch. It is just a term used to refer the monarch
  • But when we are using metaphors we are establishing that one is analogous to another