Tuesday, July 25, 2006

The operational definition meets the DefinedMeaning

In WiktionaryZ, we aim to have definitions for all the concepts that are to do with an expression in a language. These definitions have to be good, they have to express well what the concept is. We have great definitions, operational definitions, when more than 90% of the people correctly identify the concepts given the definition in a corpus.

When such an operational meaning cannot be correctly identified by 90%, it means that all the definitions of the different concepts are suspect. It may mean that too many concepts have been identified; certainly more work needs to be done to define things better.

In WiktionaryZ, many DefinedMeanings may exist where it has been indicated that the definition does not define the concept really well. These concepts are close but no cigar; they should not be taken into account when it is determined if the Definitions are indeed operational definitions.

The question is, how do you then identify the quality of the translations and the usability of the synonyms.

Thanks,
GerardM

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

I'm not entirely clear about what the following means:

"We have great definitions, operational definitions, when more than 90% of the people correctly identify the concepts given the definition in a corpus."

It sounds like it might mean the following:
1. The audience reads a word and its definition.
2. The audience reads a corpus.
3. If more than 90% of the audience understands the use of that word within the corpus, the definition is declared "good".

Or does it mean the following?
1. The audience reads the definitions.
2. The audience reads the corpus.
3. The audience tries to match each definition with words used in the corpus.
4. If 90% of the audience matches a given definition with all of the words of the corpus used with that meaning and with only the words of the corpus used with that meaning, the definition is a good definition for those words.

Perhaps the description is clear and I'm just one of the 10% who isn't expected to be able to make use of the definition of "good definition". :-)
--Rod

GerardM said...

Hoi,
It is option three
* the audience is given the definitions for an expression
* the audience are given many examples of the expression in a corpus.
* the audience tries to identify the definition that goes with that expression (in the corpus).
* When 90% cannot accurately identify the correct definition for the expression in the corpus, the definitions as a set are not good enough.

Thanks,
Gerard