Testing agreement between lexicographers: A case of homonymy and polysemy

Marek Maziarz, Francis Bond, Ewa Rudnicka


Abstract
In this paper we compare Oxford Lexico and Merriam Webster dictionaries with Princeton WordNet with respect to the description of semantic (dis)similarity between polysemous and homonymous senses that could be inferred from them. WordNet lacks any explicit description of polysemy or homonymy, but as a network of linked senses it may be used to compute semantic distances between word senses. To compare WordNet with the dictionaries, we transformed sample entry microstructures of the latter into graphs and cross-linked them with the equivalent senses of the former. We found that dictionaries are in high agreement with each other, if one considers polysemy and homonymy altogether, and in moderate concordance, if one focuses merely on polysemy descriptions. Measuring the shortest path lengths on WordNet gave results comparable to those on the dictionaries in predicting semantic dissimilarity between polysemous senses, but was less felicitous while recognising homonymy.
Anthology ID:
2021.gwc-1.34
Volume:
Proceedings of the 11th Global Wordnet Conference
Month:
January
Year:
2021
Address:
University of South Africa (UNISA)
Editors:
Piek Vossen, Christiane Fellbaum
Venue:
GWC
SIG:
SIGLEX
Publisher:
Global Wordnet Association
Note:
Pages:
292–300
Language:
URL:
https://aclanthology.org/2021.gwc-1.34
DOI:
Bibkey:
Cite (ACL):
Marek Maziarz, Francis Bond, and Ewa Rudnicka. 2021. Testing agreement between lexicographers: A case of homonymy and polysemy. In Proceedings of the 11th Global Wordnet Conference, pages 292–300, University of South Africa (UNISA). Global Wordnet Association.
Cite (Informal):
Testing agreement between lexicographers: A case of homonymy and polysemy (Maziarz et al., GWC 2021)
Copy Citation:
PDF:
https://aclanthology.org/2021.gwc-1.34.pdf
Code
 marekmaziarz/homopoly