Mandinka and English/Ambiguity resolution

corpus coverage

Total Number of Tokens: 228; Total Number of Analysis: 235

Initial Ambiguity is 254/228 (~1.11403508771929824561)

examples of ambiguity

paanoo

In Mandinka, the word paanoo means both "pan" and "breakdown". This is an example of lexical ambiguity, as both terms have separate meanings.

paanoo as pan:

Ñing paanoo daa mu jelu le ti? What is the cost of the pan?

paanoo as breakdown:

Nna motoo paanoo soto. My car had a breakdown

kotoo

In Mandinka, the word kotoo can mean both "elder sibling" (noun) and "old" (adjective). This is an example of morphological ambiguity, as both words are separate parts of speech.

kotoo as elder sibling:

Kotoo fulale sonkata nung. Two elder siblings had quarreled.

paanoo as old:

Ñing mu buku kotoo le ti. This is an old book.

solving ambiguity

Morphological ambiguity

SELECT Adjective

   IF (0 Noun) (0 Adjective) 
   (-1 Noun) ;

REMOVE Adjective

   IF (0 Noun) (0 Adjective)
   (1 Numeral) ;

In Mandinka, adjectives typically follow the noun they modify. Therefore, if katoo follows a noun, we can assume it to be an adjective, and the word refers to the term "old". If the word katoo is followed by a number (e.g. two), then it cannot be an adjective, and it has to be a noun. Therefore, in that instance, katoo means elder siblings.

Lexical ambiguity

For the word paanoo, we translate it as pan if it is followed by the word for cost, or "daa". Otherwise, we translate it as breakdown.

<rule weight="1.2">
   <match lemma="paanoo" tags ="n.*">
     <select lemma="pan" tags ="n.*"/>
   </match>
   <match lemma="daa" tags="n.*"/>
 </rule>

 <rule>
   <match lemma="paanoo" tags ="n.*">
     <select lemma="breakdown" tags ="n.*"/>
   </match>