Lemmatizing and stemming are similar, but not the same. Example for possible res... | Hacker News

Hacker Newsnew | past | comments | ask | show | jobs | submit

lignuist on Feb 27, 2012 | parent | context | favorite | on: How To Build a Naive Bayes Classifier

Lemmatizing and stemming are similar, but not the same.

Example for possible results:

Lemmatizing: indices -> index

Stemming: indices -> indi

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stemming#Lemmatisation_algorith...

nl on Feb 27, 2012 | [–]

It's probably worth noting that in this context stemming is probably most appropriate. Lemmatizing is unlikely to give better results and in most implementations you suffer a significant performance hit.

bad_user on Feb 27, 2012 | [–]

Btw, in case you want a good lemmatisation implementation, there's one in NLTK that uses the WordNet database.

Consider applying for YC's Fall 2026 batch! Applications are open till July 27.
Guidelines | FAQ | Lists | API | Security | Legal | Apply to YC | Contact