Lesson 12. Keep more than one possible meaning

Why this matters

A door marked “hall” might lead to a sports hall or a concert hall; you need more information. Kazakh ат likewise means “horse” and “name.” One isolated word cannot justify choosing either. A dictionary of literary Kazakh records both meanings.

See the whole solution first

For one spelling we keep a list of candidates: possible analyses, not one guessed answer. For ат, store жылқы (“horse”) and есім (“name”). For үй, store only баспана (“home”) so far. These are not numerical probabilities: the first list item is not automatically more likely.

Create meanings.py in UTF-8 and run it with the familiar command.

analyses = {"ат": ["жылқы", "есім"],
            "үй": ["баспана"]}
word = input("Сөз: ").lower()
if word in analyses:
    print(analyses[word])
else:
    print("білмеймін")

The step file matches the lesson code.

We already know dictionaries {...} from lesson 8 and lists [...] from lesson 7. Now one dictionary value is itself a whole list. Imagine a word card with two meanings on its reverse side. analyses[word] gets the list for a key, and print displays it with square brackets and quotation marks. Input ат gives ['жылқы', 'есім']; үй gives ['баспана']. Even one value stays in a list, so later we can ask the same question of every word: “how many candidates?” Input жол gives білмеймін because there is no such key.

This is not an analysis of every possible ending or a context-based choice of meaning. We entered two words by hand so ambiguity is preserved. If a later question needs to choose between “horse” and “name,” the model must find an explicit reason or ask for clarification. It must not treat the first entry as true merely because it is first.

Memory map

Spelling → dictionary → list of possible meanings → keep all; no entry → білмеймін. The arrow does not jump straight to one answer.

Recall and task

Hide the code and rebuild the entry for ат using the map. Explain why ['баспана'] stays a list even with one value. Then try АТ, үй, and жол.

Task: add "кітап" with one value, "оқу құралы" (“reading material”), and test кітап. Hint: put a comma after the үй pair and enclose the new value in square brackets. Answer: add "кітап": ["оқу құралы"] inside the dictionary; the output is ['оқу құралы']. Common mistake: writing the two ат meanings under two identical dictionary keys: the second overwrites the first. One key must point to a list.