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Abstract

Meaning conflation deficiency (MCD) presents a continual obstacle in natural language processing (NLP), especially for low-resourced and morphologically complex languages, where polysemy and contextual ambiguity diminish model precision in word sense disambiguation (WSD) tasks. This paper examines the optimisation of contextual embedding models, namely XLNet, ELMo, BART, and their improved variations, to tackle MCD in linguistic settings. Utilising Sesotho sa Leboa as a case study, researchers devised an enhanced XLNet architecture with specific hyperparameter optimisation, dynamic padding, early termination, and class-balanced training. Comparative assessments reveal that the optimised XLNet attains an accuracy of 91% and exhibits balanced precision–recall metrics of 92% and 91%, respectively, surpassing both its baseline counterpart and competing models. Optimised ELMo attained the greatest overall metrics (accuracy: 92%, F1-score: 96%), whilst optimised BART demonstrated significant accuracy improvements (96%) despite a reduced recall. The results demonstrate that fine-tuning contextual embeddings using MCD-specific methodologies significantly improves semantic disambiguation for under-represented languages. This study offers a scalable and flexible optimisation approach suitable for additional low-resource language contexts.

Details

1009240
Title
Optimising Contextual Embeddings for Meaning Conflation Deficiency Resolution in Low-Resourced Languages
Author
Masethe, Mosima A 1   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Ojo, Sunday O 2   VIAFID ORCID Logo  ; Masethe, Hlaudi D 3   VIAFID ORCID Logo 

 Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Accounting and Informatics, Durban University of Technology, Durban 4001, South Africa, Department of Computer Science and Information Technology, School of Science and Technology, Sefako Makgatho Health Sciences University, Ga-Rankuwa 0208, South Africa 
 Department of Information Technology, Faculty of Accounting and Informatics, Durban University of Technology, Durban 4001, South Africa 
 Department of Data Science, Faculty of Information Communication Technology, Tshwane University of Technology, Pretoria 0001, South Africa 
Publication title
Computers; Basel
Volume
14
Issue
9
First page
402
Number of pages
30
Publication year
2025
Publication date
2025
Publisher
MDPI AG
Place of publication
Basel
Country of publication
Switzerland
Publication subject
e-ISSN
2073431X
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
Document type
Journal Article
Publication history
 
 
Online publication date
2025-09-22
Milestone dates
2025-07-28 (Received); 2025-09-06 (Accepted)
Publication history
 
 
   First posting date
22 Sep 2025
ProQuest document ID
3254483396
Document URL
https://www.proquest.com/scholarly-journals/optimising-contextual-embeddings-meaning/docview/3254483396/se-2?accountid=208611
Copyright
© 2025 by the authors. Licensee MDPI, Basel, Switzerland. This article is an open access article distributed under the terms and conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY) license (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.
Last updated
2025-11-07
Database
ProQuest One Academic