Here I wish to outline (and sort a bit) two principles I have in mind in dealing with ambiguousness in linguistic input. My point is to suggest ways that might reflect upon the way the human mind deals with this issue. Ambiguity issues are solved by the human mind seamlessly and with probably very little intervention of higher logic and conscious thinking. This is shown by the fact that ambiguous input is not seen as such in most cases. Its ambiguous nature is only revealed after a second look and guided search. This suggests that the issue is dealt with low level simple methods.
The first principle is frequency. Basically it means that when faced with ambiguous input the subject should decide on which meaning to choose based on the past frequency of the various options. The option with the highest frequency will win. To optimize this principle one should pick the range of time properly. Meaning, the amount of time into the past that is used when calculating past frequencies of meanings. I believe this parameter, as used by the human mind, to be dynamic and at times results in a segment of time that is not even continuous. For example, one might understand a lecture better remembering what was said in the previous lecture two weeks ago and not what was said in the time between the lectures.
In one of my other posts here I talked about the idea of representing language through objects. Such objects, like linguistic items, will have to be linked and these links will have to reflect the ambiguity of the input. This gives us another option to over ambiguity - take the hottest links first. Meaning that one should chose the most recently used (MRU) path when coming to take links between objects. This method reflects the importance of the current situation on interpreting the input. It’s this second principle which I believe is actually of higher importance in daily life.
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