Distributional semantics for diachronic search. (January 2018)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Gamallo, Pablo; Rodríguez-Torres, Iván; Garcia, Marcos
• Is Part Of: Computers & electrical engineering. Volume 65(2018)
• Page Start: 438
• Page End: 448
• Publication Date: 2018-01
• Subjects: Natural language processing -- Diachronic semantics -- Distributional semantics -- Language change; Computer engineering -- Periodicals; Electrical engineering -- Periodicals; Electrical engineering -- Data processing -- Periodicals; Ordinateurs -- Conception et construction -- Périodiques; Électrotechnique -- Périodiques; Électrotechnique -- Informatique -- Périodiques; Computer engineering; Electrical engineering; Electrical engineering -- Data processing; Periodicals; Electronic journals; 621.302854
• DOI: 10.1016/j.compeleceng.2017.07.017
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 0045-7906

Abstract

Highlights: A method to search word similarity over different time periods is proposed. The strategy is based on distributional models obtained from Google Ngrams. A Web interface to visualize semantic changes across historical Spanish texts is designed. Graphical abstract: Abstract: This article describes a system aimed at searching for word similarity over different time periods. The strategy is based on distributional models obtained from a chronologically structured language resource, namely Google Books Syntactic Ngrams. The models were created using dependency-based contexts and a strategy for reducing the vector space, which consists of selecting the more informative and relevant word contexts. A quantitative evaluation of the distributional models was performed. The linguistic data are stored in a NoSQL DB, which is provided with a Web interface allowing linguists to analyze the meaning change of Spanish words in written texts across time.