Probabilistically Modeling Semantic Change

Aleksandr Nisnevich, David Hall and Daniel Klein

EECS Department
University of California, Berkeley
Technical Report No. UCB/EECS-2015-36
May 1, 2015

http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2015/EECS-2015-36.pdf

We present a new model of semantic change that traces the evolution of a word's meaning through a phylogeny. By mapping meaning changes to WordNet paths, we are able to identify common kinds of semantic change. We find optimal weights for our model using expectation-maximization (EM), and use the results to conjecture about the relative frequency of different kinds of semantic change.

Advisor: Daniel Klein


BibTeX citation:

@mastersthesis{Nisnevich:EECS-2015-36,
    Author = {Nisnevich, Aleksandr and Hall, David and Klein, Daniel},
    Title = {Probabilistically Modeling Semantic Change},
    School = {EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley},
    Year = {2015},
    Month = {May},
    URL = {http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2015/EECS-2015-36.html},
    Number = {UCB/EECS-2015-36},
    Abstract = {We present a new model of semantic change that
traces the evolution of a word's meaning through a phylogeny. By mapping meaning changes to WordNet paths, we are able to identify common kinds of semantic change. We find optimal weights for our model using expectation-maximization (EM), and use the results to conjecture about the relative frequency of different kinds of semantic change.}
}

EndNote citation:

%0 Thesis
%A Nisnevich, Aleksandr
%A Hall, David
%A Klein, Daniel
%T Probabilistically Modeling Semantic Change
%I EECS Department, University of California, Berkeley
%D 2015
%8 May 1
%@ UCB/EECS-2015-36
%U http://www2.eecs.berkeley.edu/Pubs/TechRpts/2015/EECS-2015-36.html
%F Nisnevich:EECS-2015-36