Development of a Stemming Algorithm.
Abstract
A stemming algorithm, a procedure to reduce all words with the same stem to a common form, is useful in many areas of computational linguistics and information retrieval work. While the form of the algorithm varies with its applications, certain linguistic problems are common to any stemming procedure. As a basis for evaluation of previous attempts to deal with these problems, the paper discusses the theoretical and practical attributes of stemming algorithms. A new version of a context-sensitive, longest-match stemming algorithm for English, developed for use in a library information transfer system but of general applications, is then proposed. A major linguistic problem in stemming, variation in spelling of stems, is discussed in some detail and several feasible programmed solutions are outlined, along with sample results of one of these methods. (Author)
Document Details
- Document Type
- Technical Report
- Publication Date
- Jun 01, 1968
- Accession Number
- AD0735504
Entities
People
- Julie B. Lovins
Organizations
- Massachusetts Institute of Technology