Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition of Verbs

This paper describes a computational implementation of an algorithm to define an ”unknown” verb based on the information in the context it appears in and any applicable background knowledge that the reader brings to bear. First, it describes some related research that has taken place and how it may be applied to the Contextual Vocabulary Acquisition (CVA) project. Next, it describes the process taken to enhance the current implementation of the CVA verb algorithm. This begins with an analysis of what information best conveys verb meaning, focusing on dictionary definitions as a model. It then moves on to how this information can be retrieved from the context of a verb and how it can be used to categorize the verb or determine its relationship to other ‘known’ actions. Next it describes the computational implementation of this algorithm and the results after applying it to a sequence of passages represented in the SNePS knowledge representation and reasoning system (Shapiro & Rapaport 1987). Lastly, it outlines some of the remaining issues left for future research in the CVA of verbs.