Acquiring Lexical Knowledge from Text: A Case Study

Abstract

Language acquisition addresses two important text processing issues. The immediate problem is understanding a text in spite of the existence of lexical gaps. The long term issue is that the understander must incorporate new words into its lexicon for future use. This paper describes an approach to constructing new lexical entries in a gradual process by analyzing a sequence of example texts. This approach permits the graceful tolerance of new words while enabling the automated extension of the lexicon. Each new acquired lexeme starts as a set of assumptions derived from the analysis of each word in a textual context. A variety of knowledge sources, including