Where Words Get their Meaning
Cognitive processing and distributional modelling of word meaning in first and second language
| University of Bologna
Words are not just labels for conceptual categories. Words construct conceptual categories, frame situations and influence behavior. Where do they get their meaning?
This book describes how words acquire their meaning. The author argues that mechanisms based on associations, pattern detection, and feature matching processes explain how words acquire their meaning from experience and from language alike. Such mechanisms are summarized by the distributional hypothesis, a computational theory of meaning originally applied to word occurrences only, and hereby extended to extra-linguistic contexts.
By arguing in favor of the cognitive foundations of the distributional hypothesis, which suggests that words that appear in similar contexts have similar meaning, this book offers a theoretical account for word meaning construction and extension in first and second language that bridges empirical findings from cognitive and computer sciences. Plain language and illustrations accompany the text, making this book accessible to a multidisciplinary academic audience.
This book describes how words acquire their meaning. The author argues that mechanisms based on associations, pattern detection, and feature matching processes explain how words acquire their meaning from experience and from language alike. Such mechanisms are summarized by the distributional hypothesis, a computational theory of meaning originally applied to word occurrences only, and hereby extended to extra-linguistic contexts.
By arguing in favor of the cognitive foundations of the distributional hypothesis, which suggests that words that appear in similar contexts have similar meaning, this book offers a theoretical account for word meaning construction and extension in first and second language that bridges empirical findings from cognitive and computer sciences. Plain language and illustrations accompany the text, making this book accessible to a multidisciplinary academic audience.
[Converging Evidence in Language and Communication Research, 23] 2020. xi, 208 pp.
Publishing status: Available
© John Benjamins
Table of Contents
Acknowledgements
|
xi
|
Chapter 1. Word power
|
2–10
|
Part 1. Word meaning construction and representation in the human mind
|
14–74
|
Chapter 2. Word meaning mental representation
|
14–31
|
Chapter 3. Word meaning extension: Deriving new meanings from old ones
|
34–53
|
Chapter 4. The bilingual mind and the bilingual mental lexicon
|
56–74
|
Part 2. Word meaning construction and representation in the artificial mind
|
78–132
|
Chapter 5. Distributional models and word embeddings
|
78–96
|
Chapter 6. Evaluating distributional models
|
98–115
|
Chapter 7. Distributional models beyond language
|
118–132
|
Part 3. Converging evidence in language and communication research
|
136–184
|
Chapter 8. Where words get their meaning
|
136–148
|
Chapter 9. The cognitive foundations of the distributional hypothesis
|
150–167
|
Chapter 10. Conclusions and outlook
|
170–184
|
References
|
185–206
|
Index
|
References
References
Abutalebi, J., & Green, D.
Althaus, N., & Westermann, G.
Amrami, A., & Goldberg, Y.
Andrews, M., Vigliocco, G., & Vinson, D.
Asher, N., & Pustejovsky, J.
Asmuth, J., & Gentner, D.
Axelrod, R., & Keohane, R. O.
Baayen, R. H.
Baayen, R. H., Hendrix, P., & Ramscar, M.
Balaban, M. T., & Waxman, S. R.
Baldwin, D. A.
Baltrušaitis, T., Ahuja, C., Morency, L.
Bambini, V., Bertini, C., Schaeken, W., Stella, A., & Di Russo, F.
Barca, L., Burani, C., & Arduino, L. S.
Barcelona, A.
Baroni, M., & Lenci, A.
Baroni, M., Dinu, G., & Kruszewski, G.
Baroni, M., Evert, S., & Lenci, A.
(Eds.) (2008) Lexical semantics: Bridging the gap between semantic theory and computational simulation. Retrieved from http://wordspace.collocations.de/lib/exe/fetch.php/workshop:esslli:esslli_2008_lexicalsemantics.pdf
Barrett, L. F.
Barsalou, L. W., & Wiemer-Hastings, K.
Barsalou, L. W., Santos, A., Simmons, K., & Wilson, C.
(2008) Language and simulation in conceptual processing. In Symbols and Embodiment: Debates on meaning and cognition (pp. 245–283). Retrieved from https://www.oxfordscholarship.com/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199217274.001.0001/acprof-9780199217274-chapter-13. 
Beigman Klebanov, B., Wee Leong, C., Gutierrez, D., Shutova, E. & Flor, M.
Bengio, Y., Schwenk, H., Senécal, J.-S., Morin, F., & Gauvain, J. L.
Beretta, A., Fiorentino, R., & Poeppel, D.
Bergelson, E., & Swingley, D.
Berlin, B., Breedlove, D. E., & Raven, P. H.
Bialystok, E.
Binder, J. R., Desai, R. H., Graves, W. W., & Conant, L. L.
Blasko, D. G., & Connine, C. M.
Blythe, R. A., Smith, K., & Smith, A. D. M.
Bolognesi, M.
Bolognesi, M., & Aina, L.
Bolognesi, M., Burgers, C., & Caselli, T.
Bolognesi, M., & Steen, G.
Bonnaud, V., Gil, R., & Ingrand, P.
Borghi, A. M., & Binkofski, F.
Boroditsky, L.
Boroditsky, L., & Prinz, J.
Borowsky, R., & Masson, M. E. J.
Boulenger, V., Hauk, O., & Pulvermuller, F.
Bouma, G.
Bruni, E., Tran, N. K., & Baroni, M.
Brysbaert, M., & Duyck, W.
Brysbaert, M., Warriner, A. B., & Kuperman, V.
Bullinaria, J. A., & Levy, J. P.
Burgoon, E. M., Henderson, M. D., & Markman, A. B.
Carpenter, M., Nagell, K., Tomasello, M., Butterworth, G., & Moore, C.
Casasanto, D.
Casasanto, D., & Gijssels, T.
Cassani, G., Grimm, R., Gillis, S., & Daelemans, W.
Çetinavcı, B. M.
Chandler, S.
Chersoni, E., Lenci, A., & Blache, P.
Church, K. W., & Hanks, P.
Clark, E.
Clark, H. H., & Lucy, P.
Collobert, R., & Weston, J.
Collobert, R., Weston, J., Bottou, L., Karlen, M., Kavukcuoglu, K., & Kuksa, P.
(2011) Natural Language Processing (almost) from Scratch. ArXiv:1103.0398 [Cs]. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/1103.0398
Connell, L.
Costa, A., & Santesteban, M.
Coulson, S., & Van Petten, C.
Crutch, S. J., & Jackson, E. C.
Crutch, S. J., & Warrington, E.
Crutch, S. J., & Warrington, E. K.
Crutch, S. J., Connell, S., & Warrington, E. K.
Crutch, S. J., Ridha, B. H., & Warrington, E. K.
Cuccio, V.
Daelemans, W. & van den Bosch, A.
Daoutis, C. A., Franklin, A., Riddett, A., Clifford, A., & Davies, I. R. L.
de Bot, K., Lowie, W., Thorne, S. L., & Verspoor, M.
De Grauwe, S., Swain, A., Holcomb, P. J., Ditman, T., & Kuperberg, G. R.
De Vega, M., Glenberg, A., & Graesser, A.
Desai, R. H., Conant, L. L., Binder, J. R., Park, H., & Seidenberg, M. S.
De Saussure, F.
Dove, G.
Dufter, P., & Schütze, H.
Egorova, N., Shtyrov, Y., & Pulvermüller, F.
Elman, J. L.
Erk, K., & Pado, S.
Falkum, I. L., Recasens, M., & Clark, E. V.
Fellbaum, C.
Ferree, M. M., Gamson, W. A., Gerhards, J., & Rucht, D.
Ferretti, T. R., Kutas, M., & McRae, K.
Ferretti, T. R., McRae, K., & Hatherell, A.
Ferry, A. L., Hespos, S. J., & Waxman, S. R.
Finkelstein, L., Gabrilovich, E., Matias, Y., Rivlin, E., Solan, Z., Wolfman, G., & Ruppin, E.
Fitneva, S. A., & Christiansen, M. H.
Fodor, J. A.
Frisson, S., & Pickering, M. J.
Fulkerson, A. L., & Waxman, S. R.
Garcia, J., & Koelling, R. A.
Gass, S.
Gentner, D.
Gentner, D., & Boroditsky, L.
Gentner, D., & Goldin-Meadow, S.
Gibbs Jr., R. W., & Gerrig, R. J.
Gildea, P., & Glucksberg, S.
Giora, R.
Glanzer, M., & Duarte, A.
Gleitman, L. R., Cassidy, K., Nappa, R., Papafragou, A., & Trueswell, J. C.
Glucksberg, S., Gildea, P., & Bookin, H.
Glucksberg, S., & Keysar, B.
Goggin, J., & Wickens, D. D.
Gomez, R. L., & Gerken, L.
Grady, J.
(1997) Foundations of Meaning: Primary Metaphors and Primary Scenes. Retrieved from https://escholarship.org/uc/item/3g9427m2
Green, D. W.
Grice, P.
Guida, A., & Lenci, A.
Haastrup, K.
Harley, B., & Hart, D.
Harris, R. J.
Harris, Zellig S., & Mandelbaum, D. G.
Hill, F., Reichart, R., & Korhonen, A.
Hoffman, P.
Hoffman, P., Jefferies, E., & Lambon Ralph, M. A.
Hoffman, P., Lambon Ralph, M. A., & Rogers, T. T.
Hollis, G.
Horst, J. S., & Samuelson, L. K.
Huang, T. H.
Huckin, T., & Coady, J.
Humphries, C., Binder, J. R., Medler, D. A., & Liebenthal, E.
Indefrey, P.
Inhoff, A. W., Lima, S. D., & Carroll, P. J.
Jung, K., Shavitt, S., Viswanathan, M., & Hilbe, J. M.
Kachergis, G., Yu, C., & Shiffrin, R. M.
Kahneman, D., & Tversky, A.
Kamin, L. J.
Kiela, D., & Clark, S.
Kiela, D., Bulat, L., & Clark, S.
Kiela, D., & Clark, S.
Kintsch, W.
Klein, D. E., & Murphy, G. L.
Kövecses, Z.
Krennmayr, T., Steen, G.
Krishnakumaran, S., & Zhu, X.
Kroll, J. F., & Stewart, E.
Kroll, J. F., Bobb, S. C., & Wodniecka, Z.
Kuhl, P. K.
Lai, V. T., Curran, T., & Menn, L.
Lai, V. T., & Curran, T.
Lakoff, G., & Johnson, M.
Landauer, T. K., & Dumais, S. T.
Lapesa, G., & Evert, S.
Lemhöfer, K., Dijkstra, T., Schriefers, H., Baayen, R. H., Grainger, J., & Zwitserlood, P.
Lenci, A.
Lent, J. R.
Leong, C. W., Klebanov, B. B., & Shutova, E.
Levinson, S. C.
Levy, O., & Goldberg, Y.
Levy, O., Goldberg, Y., & Dagan, I.
Liberman, V., Samuels, S. M., & Ross, L.
Littlemore, J.
Louwerse, M. M.
Louwerse, M. M., & Zwaan, R. A.
Lowder, M. W., & Gordon, P. C.
Lupyan, G.
Lynott, D., & Connell, L.
Mahon, B. Z.
Mahon, B. Z., & Caramazza, A.
Malt, B. C., Gennari, S., Imai, M., Ameel, E., Tsuda, N., & Majid, A.
Mandera, P., Keuleers, E., & Brysbaert, M.
Markman, E. M., & Wachtel, G. F.
McCormick, C. & Ryan, N.
McDonald, S., & Brew, C.
McElree, B., & Nordlie, J.
McElree, B., Frisson, S., & Pickering, M. J.
McElree, B., M. Traxler, M. Pickering, R. Seely, and R. Jackendoff
McMurray, B., Horst, J. S., & Samuelson, L. K.
McMurray, B., Horst, J. S., Toscano, J. C., & Samuelson, L. K.
McNeil, B. J., Pauker, S. G., Sox, H. C., & Tversky, A.
McRae, K., & Jones, M.
McRae, K., Cree, G. S., Seidenberg, M. S., & McNorgan, C.
McRae, K., Nedjadrasul, D., Pau, R., Lo, B. P.-H., & King, L.
Meara, P. M.
Medin, D., & Ortony, A.
Medina, T. N., Snedeker, J., Trueswell, J. C., & Gleitman, L. R.
Meng, Y., Huang, J., Wang, G., Wang, Z., Zhang, C., Han, J.
Mesquita, B., Barrett, L. F., & Smith, E. R.
Mikolov, T., Chen, K., Corrado, G., & Dean, J.
(2013) Efficient Estimation of Word Representations in Vector Space. ArXiv:1301.3781 [Cs]. Retrieved from http://arxiv.org/abs/1301.3781
Mikolov, T., Yih, S. W., & Zweig, G.
(2013) Linguistic Regularities in Continuous Space Word Representations. Proceedings of the 2013 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (NAACL-HLT-2013). Retrieved from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/linguistic-regularities-in-continuous-space-word-representations/
Mitchell, M.
Monaghan, P., & Mattock, K.
Moss, H. E., Ostrin, R. K., Tyler, L. K., & Marslen-Wilson, W. D.
Munakata, Y., & McClelland, J. L.
Nacey, S.
Nassaji, H.
Nation, I. S. P.
Noble, W., & Davidson, I.
Noppeney, U., & Price, C. J.
Nosofsky, R. M.
Ortony, A., Schallert, D. L., Reynolds, R. E., & Antos, S. J.
Osgood, C. E., Suci, G. J., & Tannenbaum, P. H.
Padó, S., & Lapata, M.
Parel, R.
Park, S., Bak, J., & Oh, A.
Pecher, D., & Zwaan, R. A.
Pedersen, T., Patwardhan, S., & Michelizzi, J.
Peirsman, Y., & Geeraerts, D.
Piñango, M. M., Zhang, M., Foster-Hanson, E., Negishi, M., Lacadie, C., & Constable, R. T.
Pirrelli, V., Marzi, C., Ferro, M., Cardillo, F. A., Baayen, H. R., & Milin, P.
Plat, R., Lowie, W. & de Bot, K.
Plunkett, K., Hu, J.-F., & Cohen, L. B.
Polka, L., & Werker, J. F.
Ponari, M., Norbury, C. F., & Vigliocco, G.
Ponniah, J.
Pragglejaz Group
Pulvermüller, F.
Pynte, J., Besson, M., Robichon, F.-H., & Poli, J.
Quinn, P. C., Eimas, P. D., & Rosenkrantz, S. L.
Raganato, A., Camacho-Collados, J., & Navigli, R.
Ramscar, M., Dye, M., & Klein, J.
Ramscar, M., Dye, M., & McCauley, S. M.
Raposo, A., Moss, H. E., Stamatakis, E. A., & Tyler, L. K.
Reines, M. F., & Prinz, J.
Rescorla, R. A., & Wagner, A. R.
Rescorla, R. A.
Restrepo Ramos, F. D.
Riordan, B., & Jones, M. N.
Roberson, D., Hanley, J. R., & Pak, H.
Robinson, C. W., & Sloutsky, V. M.
Rodd, J., Gaskell, G., & Marslen-Wilson, W.
Rosch, E.
Rosch, E., Mervis, C. B., Gray, W. D., Johnson, D. M., & Boyes-Braem, P.
Rosenblatt, F.
Rothe, S., Ebert, S., & Schütze, H.
Rubenstein, H., & Goodenough, J. B.
Rüschemeyer, S.-A., Brass, M., & Friederici, A. D.
Sabsevitz, D. S., Medler, D. A., Seidenberg, M., & Binder, J. R.
Saffran, J. R., Aslin, R. N., & Newport, E. L.
Saffran, J. R., Newport, E. L., & Aslin, R. N.
Sahlgren, M.
Sahlgren, M., & Lenci, A.
Schwanenflugel, P. J., & Shoben, E. J.
Schwanenflugel, P. J., Harnishfeger, K. K., & Stowe, R. W.
Scott, S. K., Blank, C., Rosen, S., & Wise, R.
Searle, J. R.
Shutova, Ekaterina
Shutova, E., Kaplan, J., Teufel, S., & Korhonen, A.
Shutova, E., Kiela, D., and Maillard, J.
(2016) Black holes and white rabbits: Metaphor identification with visual features. In Proceedings of the 2016 Conference of the North American Chapter of the Association for Computational Linguistics: Human Language Technologies (San Diego, CA), 160–170.
Shutova, E., Sun, L., Korhonen, A.
Sikos, J. & Padó, S.
Slobin, D. I.
Smith, L., & Yu, C.
Spitsyna, G., Warren, J. E., Scott, S. K., Turkheimer, F. E., & Wise, R. J. S.
Steen, G. J., Dorst, A. G., Herrmann, J. B., Kaal, A., Krennmayr, T., & Pasma, T.
Swingley, D.
Talmy, L.
Tannen, D.
Thaler, S., Simperl, E., Siorpaes, K., & Hofer, C.
Thomas, D. G., Campos, J. J., Shucard, D. W., Ramsay, D. S., & Shucard, J.
Tomasello, M.
Tomasello, M., & Barton, M. E.
Tomasello, M., Strosberg, R., & Akhtar, N.
Trask, A., Michalak, M., & Liu, J.
Traxler, M. J., Morris, R. K., & Seely, R. E.
Trueswell, J. C., Medina, T. N., Hafri, A., & Gleitman, L. R.
Turney, P. D.
Tversky, A., & Kahneman, D.
Utsumi, A.
Van den Bos, G. R.
Veale, T.
Veale, T., Shutova, E., & Klebanov, B. B.
Vigliocco, G., Filipovic Kleiner, L.
Vigliocco, G., Ponari, M., & Norbury, C.
Vivas, L., Montefinese, M., Bolognesi, M., and Vivas, G.
von Ahn, L., & Dabbish, L.
Vouloumanos, A.
Wang, J., Conder, J. A., Blitzer, D. N., & Shinkareva, S. V.
Warrington, E. K., & Cipolotti, L.
Waxman, S. R., & Markow, D. B.
Weaver, W.
Webb, S.
Weber, I., Robertson, S., & Vojnovic, M.
(2009) Rethinking the ESP Game. Conference on Human Factors in Computing Systems, 11. Retrieved from https://www.microsoft.com/en-us/research/publication/rethinking-the-esp-game/
Weiland, H., Bambini, V., & Schumacher, P. B.
Werkmann Horvat, A., Bolognesi, M., and Lahiri, A.
forth.). Processing of literal and metaphorical meanings in polysemous verbs: An experiment and its methodological importance.
Werkmann Horvat, A., Bolognesi, M., and Kohl, K.
forth.). Demolishing walls and myths: On the status of conventional metaphorical meaning in the L2 lexicon.
Westermann, G., & Mareschal, D.
Wilks, Y.
Wheeler, D. J.
Wiemer-Hastings, K., & Xu, X.
Winawer, J., Witthoft, N., Frank, M. C., Wu, L., Wade, A. R., & Boroditsky, L.
Wolff, P., & Holmes, K. J.
Yu, C.
Yu, C., & Smith, L. B.
Yu, C., Zhong, Y., & Fricker, D.
Yurovsky, D., Fricker, D. C., Yu, C., & Smith, L. B.
Zarcone, A., Lenci, A., Padó, S., & Utt, J.
Zarcone, A., Padó, S., & Lenci, A.
Zipf, G. K.
Zwaan, R. A.
Subjects
Linguistics
Psychology
BIC Subject: CFDM – Bilingualism & multilingualism
BISAC Subject: LAN016000 – LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics / Semantics