How Computers Parse the Ambiguity of Everyday Language

If you're one of the 2.4 million Twitter followers of the Hamilton impresario Lin-Manuel Miranda, you've come to expect a delightful stream of observations, including tweets capturing conversations with his son Sebastian, now 3 years old. Earlier this month, Miranda offered one such exchange under the title, "S'MORES. Me: So that's the marshmallow but you're going to eat it with this graham cracker and chocolate. Sebastian: No, I'm going to eat it with my MOUTH. A charming slice of life, to be sure. But in that brief interaction, young Sebastian Miranda also inadvertently hit upon a kind of ambiguity that reveals a great deal about how people learn and process language--and how we might teach computers to do the same. The misinterpretation on which the s'mores story hinges is hiding in the humble preposition with. I'm going to eat this marshmallow with ... If you're in the mood for s'mores, then "graham cracker and chocolate" is an appropriate object of the preposition with.