Consequently, terms are ambiguous and can be interpreted differently. Ambiguity is
minimied by considering the context of terms. Disambiguating terms by their context is
a fairly effortless process for humans. However, for a computer this is a rather
complicated task. Humans typically work in concept space while computers work in
term space (Ozcan & Aslangdogan, 2004). Concepts are defined by how they relate to
other concepts. Terms, on the other hand, consist of one or more words that represent
concepts (e.g. christmas tree). A term can represent many concepts (i.e. homonyms)
while a concept can be represented by many different terms (i.e. synonyms). The
relationship between homonyms and synonyms is summarised in Figure 1.3.