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A Review of Reverse Dictionary: Finding Words from Concept Description

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Next Generation Computing Technologies on Computational Intelligence (NGCT 2018)

Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 922))

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Abstract

While dictionaries suit to the needs of readers in finding the meanings of words, it falls short in addressing the needs of the language producers (writers/speakers) for getting an appropriate word corresponding to a concept in mind. ‘Reverse dictionary’ aim to address this problem. It takes a user description (in natural language) of the concept as input and provides a set of words satisfying that description as the output. The problem, although not novel, is of utmost concern in view of the compromises that generation of language producers have to make, the most common of all being the circumlocution. Ranging from books in printed form as earliest attempts to solve this problem, it is found to be addressed comprehensively in the literature only in the near past using diverse approaches based on Information Retrieval System, Mental Dictionary, Semantic Analysis and Neural Language Models. In order to carry out further research on this subject, a critical insight into the existing related works is vital which is provided in this paper. More importantly, identification of the research gaps followed by a discussion of possible enhancements of existing works and related lines of research is presented.

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Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Computer Engineering, Aligarh Muslim University, Aligarh, India

    Bushra Siddique & Mirza Mohd Sufyan Beg

Authors
  1. Bushra Siddique
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  2. Mirza Mohd Sufyan Beg
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Correspondence to Bushra Siddique .

Editor information

Editors and Affiliations

  1. University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

    Manish Prateek

  2. University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

    Durgansh Sharma

  3. University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

    Rajeev Tiwari

  4. University of Petroleum and Energy Studies, Dehradun, India

    Rashmi Sharma

  5. National Institute of Technology, Srinagar, Uttrakhand, India

    Kamal Kumar

  6. Thapar University, Patiala, India

    Neeraj Kumar

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Siddique, B., Sufyan Beg, M.M. (2019). A Review of Reverse Dictionary: Finding Words from Concept Description. In: Prateek, M., Sharma, D., Tiwari, R., Sharma, R., Kumar, K., Kumar, N. (eds) Next Generation Computing Technologies on Computational Intelligence. NGCT 2018. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 922. Springer, Singapore. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1718-1_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-981-15-1718-1_11

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  • Publisher Name: Springer, Singapore

  • Print ISBN: 978-981-15-1717-4

  • Online ISBN: 978-981-15-1718-1

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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