Trigram is a term used to refer to a group of three successive words. In this context, it is often used as a method of disambiguating word meaning, since the addition of context can help to more accurately determine the intended meaning of a word.
The term trigram is sometimes used interchangeably with the term 3-gram. However, strictly speaking, a 3-gram is a set of three items (words, letters, etc.), while a trigram is a sequence of three items.
Trigrams are often used in natural language processing tasks such as part-of-speech tagging and named entity recognition. In these tasks, the addition of context can be helpful in accurately determining the meaning of a word.
Outside of the text analytics industry, the term trigram may be used to refer to any group of three things, such as a group of three letters or a group of three people.
The term trigram is similar to the terms bigram and unigram. A bigram is a group of two successive items (words, letters, etc.), while a unigram is a single item (word, letter, etc.).
So, in the text analytics industry, trigrams are used as a method of disambiguating word meaning. Trigrams are groups of three successive words that help to more accurately determine the intended meaning of a word.
Importance of Trigram in Text Analytics
The term trigram is most commonly used in the text analytics industry as a method of disambiguating word meaning. In this context, trigrams are used to add context and improve accuracy when determining the meaning of a word.
For example, the word “bank” can have multiple meanings (e.g. financial institution, edge of a river, etc.). However, the addition of context can help to more accurately determine the intended meaning of the word.
For instance, the trigram “I went to the bank” is most likely referring to a financial institution, while the trigram “the bank was flooded” is most likely referring to the edge of a river.
In general, the use of trigrams can be helpful in any natural language processing task where the meaning of a word needs to be accurately determined.
Comparison to Other Terms
As mentioned above, the term trigram is sometimes used interchangeably with the term 3-gram. However, strictly speaking, a 3-gram is a set of three items (words, letters, etc.), while a trigram is a sequence of three items.