Natural Language Processing (COSC 6405)

Lecture 06: Disambiguation

Department of Computer Science,

Addis Ababa University

Yaregal Assabie

2018/19—Sem I
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Ambiguous Text
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Introduction: Ambiguous Text

• A text is said to be ambiguous if multiple or alternative linguistic structures can be built

for it.

• For example, given the following lexical entry in a lexicon.

duck
V: to move (head or body) quickly downwards or away
N: waterfowl
N: a heavy cotton fabric used for clothing and tents

™ We can see that at least the following linguistic meanings can be derived from
the sentence “I made her duck”.

(1) I cooked waterfowl for her

(2) I cooked waterfowl belonging to her
(3) I created the fabric she owns
(4) I caused her to quickly lower her head or body

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 2/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Ambiguous Text
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Introduction: Ambiguity Resolution

• Ambiguity may occur at:

™ Phonological level - multiple orthographic representations

™ Morphological level - multiple word classes

™ Syntactic level - different ways to parse the tree

™ Semantic level - different meanings of the same parse tree

™ Discourse level - different references of the same anaphora

™ Pragmatic level - cannot be clearly interpreted

• Disambiguation (Ambiguity Resolution) refers to the resolution of ambiguities that

occur at different levels of linguistic analysis.

• Most tasks in language processing can be viewed as resolving ambiguity at one of

these levels.

• Ambiguity resolution at each level of the linguistic analysis is required by almost all NLP
applications.

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 3/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Morphological Level: Sources of Ambiguity

• Morphological ambiguity occurs due to multiple word classes.

• For example, consider the following cases.

(i)
duck: verb, noun
her: dative pronoun, possessive pronoun
“I made her duck” can mean:
(1) I cooked waterfowl for her
(2) I cooked waterfowl belonging to her
(3) I created the fabric she owns
(4) I caused her to quickly lower her head or body

™ Ambiguities (1), (2) and (4) arise at morphological level.

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 4/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Morphological Level: Sources of Ambiguity

(ii)

Aበበች: noun, verb

“ጽጌረዳዋ Aበበች” can mean:
(1) The rose plant flowered (blossomed)
(2) The beautiful Abebech

™ Ambiguities (1) and (2) arise at morphological level.

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 5/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Morphological Level: Ambiguity Resolution

• Ambiguity at morphological level can be resolved by

™ Part-of-Speech Tagger (POST)

™ Parsing (Syntactic Analysis)

• For example

(i) “I made her duck” can be tagged as:

I (N) made (V) her (dative pro.) duck (N) Î (1)

I (N) made (V) her (possessive pro.) duck (N) Î (2)

I (N) made (V) her (N) duck (V) Î (4)

(1) I cooked waterfowl for her

(2) I cooked waterfowl belonging to her
(3) I created the fabric she owns
(4) I caused her to quickly lower her head or body

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 6/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Morphological Level: Ambiguity Resolution

(i) “ጽጌረዳዋ Aበበች” can be tagged as:

ጽጌረዳዋ (Definite N) Aበበች (V) Î (1)

ጽጌረዳዋ (Modifier, N) Aበበች (N) Î (2)

(1) The rose plant flowered (blossomed)

(2) The beautiful Abebech

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 7/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Syntactic Level: Sources of Ambiguity

• Syntactic ambiguity occurs when there are multiple ways to parse a sentence.

• For example, consider the following parse trees for “I made her duck”.

(i) S (ii) S

NP VP NP VP

I V NP VP I V NP

made her V made Det N

duck her duck

™ Ambiguities (1) and (4) arise as a result of syntactic ambiguity.

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 8/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Syntactic Level: Ambiguity Resolution

• Syntactic ambiguity can be resolved by

™ Probabilistic Parsing

™ Semantic Analysis

• For example, the following parsing result resolves “I made her duck” to mean (4).
S
(1) I cooked waterfowl for her
(2) I cooked waterfowl belonging to her
NP VP
(3) I created the fabric she owns
(4) I caused her to quickly lower her head or body
I V NP VP

made her V

duck

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 9/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Semantic Level: Sources of Ambiguity

• Semantic ambiguity occurs when there are different meanings for the same parse tree.

• For example, consider the following parse tree for “I made her duck”.
S
(1) I cooked waterfowl for her
(2) I cooked waterfowl belonging to her
NP VP (3) I created the fabric she owns
(4) I caused her to quickly lower her head or body
I V NP
cooked
made
made Det N created

her duck

™ Ambiguities (2) and (3) arise as a result of semantic ambiguity.

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 10/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Semantic Level: Ambiguity Resolution

• Semantic ambiguity can be resolved by

™ Word Sense Disambiguation (WSD)

™ Discourse Analysis

• For example, consider the following sentences.

(1) I went to the bank to deposit money.

(2) I went to the bank to look at the river.

(1) I went to the bank. Unfortunately, it was closed.

(2) I went to the bank. Unfortunately, it was flooded due to heavy

rainfall.

• POST and WSD can be supported by a lexicon.

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 11/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Discourse Level: Sources of Ambiguity

• Discourse ambiguity occurs due to different references of the same anaphora.

• Consider the following examples.

(1) The city councilors refused the demonstrators a permit

because they feared violence.

(2) The city councilors refused the demonstrators a permit

because they advocated revolution.

• The ambiguities in (1) and (2) arise because “they” may refer to either

™ “The city councilors”; or

™ “the demonstrators”.

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 12/14
 Introduction
Morphological Level
Sources of Ambiguity
Syntactic Level
Ambiguity Resolution
Semantic Level
Discourse Level

Discourse Level: Ambiguity Resolution

• Discourse ambiguity can be resolved by

™ Pragmatic Analysis

• For example, consider the following background knowledge.

City councilors are members of the governing body who would like
to see their city free of any violence. They know that violence
could undermine their mission, vision and goals. They also want to
stay in power and do not like any revolution.

City residents usually feel that there is no governing body who

listens to their quest for change in city administration. They do
not have any other means except staging a demonstration and make
their demand fulfilled.

™ With this background knowledge “they” refers to “The city councilors” in (1)
and “the demonstrators” in (2)

• A text is finally concluded as ambiguous is it can not be resolved by Pragmatic Analysis.

Department of Computer Science, Addis Ababa University Lecture 06: Disambiguation 13/14
TOC: Course Syllabus

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