Analog Networks for Word Association

Abstract

This paper is concerned with the use of analog electrical networks for the automatic recognition of statistical word associations present in written English text. A general mathematical theory is proposed for the association of linguistic units by means of linear transformations, and it is shown that this theory can be realized through use of passive electrical networks. Small-scale and experimental associative networks have in fact been built for information retrieval applications. These devices generate measures of association among index terms used to characterize a document collection, and between the index terms and the documents themselves. Roughly speaking, measures of two distinct types of linguistic association can thus be generated-"synonymy" association, which reflects similarity of meaning, and "contiguity" association which reflects relationships among designates.