Semantic Ambiguity and Perceived Ambiguity by Massimo Poesio.
Abstract:
I explore some of the issues that arise when trying to establish a connection between the underspecification hypothesis pursued in the NLP literature and work on ambiguity in semantics and in the psychological literature. A theory of underspecification is developed `from the first principles’, i.e., starting from a definition of what it means for a sentence to be semantically ambiguous and from what we know about the way humans deal with ambiguity. An underspecified language is specified as the translation language of a grammar covering sentences that display three classes of semantic ambiguity: lexical ambiguity, scopal ambiguity, and referential ambiguity. The expressions of this language denote sets of senses. A formalization of defeasible reasoning with underspecified representations is presented, based on Default Logic. Some issues to be confronted by such a formalization are discussed.
Practice is grounded on actual experience (“the burnt hand learns best”) and on understanding the nature of the task and applying that understanding. Neither is really complete without the other.
Poesio’s paper makes for good mental exercise and hopefully deeper insight into the difficulties that surround ambiguity and its reduction.