title: Stanford NER prop file meaning of DistSim
body: <p>In one of the example .prop files coming with the Stanford NER software there are two options I do not understand:</p>
  
  <pre><code>useDistSim = true
  distSimLexicon = /u/nlp/data/pos_tags_are_useless/egw4-reut.512.clusters
  </code></pre>
  
  <p>Does anyone have a hint what DistSim stands for and where I can find any more documentation on how to use these options?</p>
  
  <p>UPDATE: I just found out that DistSim means distributional similarity. I still wonder what that means in this context.</p>