Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1999.50:1-19. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by Ball State University on 01/08/09. For personal use only.
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Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1999. 50:1–19 Copyright © 1999 by Annual Reviews. All rights reserved
ON KNOWING A WORD Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1999.50:1-19. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by Ball State University on 01/08/09. For personal use only.
George A. Miller
Psychology Department, Princeton University, Princeton, New Jersey 08544; e-mail:
[email protected] KEY WORDS: context, lexical semantics, polysemy, sense identification, WordNet
ABSTRACT A person who knows a word knows much more than its meaning and pronunciation. The contexts in which a word can be used to express a particular meaning are a critical component of word knowledge. The ability to exploit context in order to determine meaning and resolve potential ambiguities is not a uniquely linguistic ability, but it is dramatically illustrated in the ease with which native speakers are able to identify the intended meanings of common polysemous words.
CONTENTS
INTRODUCTION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CRITERIA FOR WORD KNOWLEDGE . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SEMANTICS . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Lexical Semantics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WordNet . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONTEXTUALIZATION. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Polysemy. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contextual Representations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Automatic Word-Sense Identification . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . CONCLUSION . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
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INTRODUCTION The question of what it means to know a word has fascinated many psychologists, sometimes with consequences of considerable practical value to the science. Among historically more important examples one thinks of Galton (1879) experimenting with word associations, Binet (1911) using word tasks
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Annu. Rev. Psychol. 1999.50:1-19. Downloaded from arjournals.annualreviews.org by Ball State University on 01/08/09. For personal use only.
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MILLER
to test mental age, Thorndike (1921) trying to determine what words every high school graduate should know, Ogden (1934) selecting 850 words to define Basic English, or Bühler (1934) analyzing deictic words that acquire referential value from the contexts in which they are used. Clearly, word knowledge has provided fertile ground for psychological studies; the reason may be that it raises fundamental questions. That is to say, knowing a word is generally considered to be a matter of knowing the word’s meaning, and meaning is one of those concepts of great importance for understanding the nature and limits of psychology. My own interest in word knowledge grew out of an abiding curiosity about communication in general