TechSSN3 at SemEval-2025 Task 11: Multi-Label Emotion Detection Using Ensemble Transformer Models and Lexical Rules

Vishal S, Rajalakshmi Sivanaiah, Angel Deborah S


Abstract
Transformer models, specifically BERT-Large Uncased, DeBERTa, and RoBERTa, are first employed to classify the dataset, with their hyperparameters being fine-tuned to identify the most effective configuration. These models leverage deep contextual embeddings to capture nuanced semantic and syntactic information, making them powerful for sentiment analysis. However, transformer-based models alone may not fully capture the structural aspects of sentiment-bearing sentences.To address this, part-of-speech (POS) tagging is incorporated using a Hidden Markov Model (HMM) to analyze sentence structure and identify the key words responsible for conveying sentiment. By isolating adjectives, adverbs, and verbs, the lexical sentiment of individual words is determined using a polarity-based scoring method. This lexical score, derived from sentiment lexicons like SentiWordNet, provides an additional layer of interpretability, particularly in cases where transformer models struggle with implicit sentiment cues or negation handling.A key innovation in this approach is the adaptive weighting mechanism used to combine the outputs of the transformer models and lexical scoring. Instead of assigning uniform importance to each method, a unique weight is assigned to each model for every emotion category, ensuring that the best-performing approach contributes more significantly to the final sentiment prediction. For instance, DeBERTa, which excels in contextual understanding, is given more weight for subtle emotions like sadness, whereas lexical scoring is emphasized for emotions heavily influenced by explicit adjectives, such as joy or anger. The weight allocation is determined empirically through performance evaluation on a validation set, ensuring an optimal balance between deep learning-based contextual understanding and rule-based sentiment assessment.Additionally, traditional machine learning models such as Support Vector Machines (SVMs), Decision Trees, and Random Forests are tested for comparative analysis. However, these models demonstrate inferior performance, struggling with capturing deep contextual semantics and handling nuanced expressions of sentiment, reinforcing the superiority of the hybrid transformer + lexical approach.This method not only enhances interpretability but also improves accuracy, particularly in cases where sentiment is influenced by structural elements, negations, or compound expressions. The combined framework ensures a more robust and adaptable sentiment analysis model, effectively balancing data-driven learning and linguistic insights.
Anthology ID:
2025.semeval-1.27
Volume:
Proceedings of the 19th International Workshop on Semantic Evaluation (SemEval-2025)
Month:
July
Year:
2025
Address:
Vienna, Austria
Editors:
Sara Rosenthal, Aiala Rosá, Debanjan Ghosh, Marcos Zampieri
Venues:
SemEval | WS
SIG:
Publisher:
Association for Computational Linguistics
Note:
Pages:
186–192
Language:
URL:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/transition-to-people-yaml/2025.semeval-1.27/
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Cite (ACL):
Vishal S, Rajalakshmi Sivanaiah, and Angel Deborah S. 2025. TechSSN3 at SemEval-2025 Task 11: Multi-Label Emotion Detection Using Ensemble Transformer Models and Lexical Rules. In Proceedings of the 19th International Workshop on Semantic Evaluation (SemEval-2025), pages 186–192, Vienna, Austria. Association for Computational Linguistics.
Cite (Informal):
TechSSN3 at SemEval-2025 Task 11: Multi-Label Emotion Detection Using Ensemble Transformer Models and Lexical Rules (S et al., SemEval 2025)
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PDF:
https://preview.aclanthology.org/transition-to-people-yaml/2025.semeval-1.27.pdf