Semantic categorizations and encoding strategies

Skopeteas S. Semantic categorizations and encoding strategies. In: Zaefferer D, Schalley A, eds. Ontolinguistics: Correlations between ontological status and linguistic coding. Trends in Linguistics. Studies and Monographs [TiLSM]. Vol 176. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter; 2007: 331-356

Systems chemistry: logic gates based on the stimuli-responsive gel-sol transition of a crown ether-functionalized bis(urea) gelator

Dieser Beitrag ist mit Zustimmung des Rechteinhabers aufgrund einer (DFG geförderten) Allianz- bzw. Nationallizenz frei zugänglich.This publication is with permission of the rights owner freely accessible due to an Alliance licence and a national licence (funded by the DFG, German Research Foundation) respectively.A quite simple, achiral benzo-21-crown-7-substituted bis(urea) low-molecular weight gelator hierarchically assembles into helical fibrils, which further develop into bundles and finally form a stable gel in acetonitrile. The gel–sol transition can be controlled by three different molecular recognition events: K+ binding to the crown ethers, pseudorotaxane formation with secondary ammonium ions and Cl− binding to the urea units. Addition of a cryptand that scavenges the K+ ions and Ag+ addition to remove the chloride and bases/acids, which mediate pseudorotaxane formation, can reverse this process. With the gelator, and these chemical stimuli, a number of different systems can be designed that behave as logic gates. Depending on the choice of components, OR, AND, XOR, NOT, NOR, XNOR and INHIBIT gates have been realized. Thus, the gel–sol transition as a property of the system as a whole is influenced in a complex manner. For some cases, the type of logic gate is defined by input signal concentration so that an even more complex reaction of the gel towards the two input signals is achieved.DFG, SFB 765, Multivalenz als chemisches Organisations- und Wirkprinzip: Neue Architekturen, Funktionen und Anwendunge

Underspecification in verbal semantics

We view the cognitive system as a system that aims at interpreting the world. This interpretation involves the categorisation and structuring of information. Particularly important for a successful categorisation and information structuring is the disregard of irrelevant data. Underspecification, understood as 'purposeful' neglect of such information in conceptualisation, provides a mechanism for this, a mechanism that is a vital part of our cognitive system. It allows us to disregard dispensable information, whereby the cognitive effort is kept low

Relating ontological knowledge and internal structure of eventity concepts

This paper addresses the role ontological knowledge plays in the conceptualization of 'eventities' (events and similar entities, cf. Zaefferer 2002), of entities that are typically encoded by verbs in natural languages. We will approach this issue by asking which meaning components are needed for detailed decompositional representations of verbal semantics and how these components can be combined with one another. Decompositional representations of verbal semantics (and hence of eventities) depict, besides specific content information, the internal structure of eventity concepts. Accordingly, representations comprise components that convey underlying structural information - in addition to expressing content information. Such structural information includes, for instance, components that represent statal structure and those that represent activity structure

The modelling of relations in eventity conceptualisations

On the basis of a cognitive linguistics approach, namely that linguistic semantics corresponds to conceptual structures and that semantic representations should therefore reflect conceptual configurations, this paper discusses the adequate representation of conceptual relations that can be found in the semantic structure of verbs. As representational framework, a unique modelling language for linguistic semantics – the Unified Eventity Representation (UER) – is deployed. The UER is unprecedented in that it is based on the object-oriented and graphical Unified Modeling Language (UML) from computer science. We describe prominent characteristics of the UER, outline the types of conceptual relations and how they are represented in the UER, and conclude with an assessment of the modelling power of the UER with respect to the representation of conceptual relations

A cross-linguistic comparison of the event-structure of FETCH : Possible coding alternatives and their realizations

This paper presents the possible coding alternatives and the factual realizations of a complex event concept. We assume that any concept is built on a perceptional and functional basis and ask in what ways different languages encode such a concept, i.e., how the surface realizations of such a concept differ from one another. The concept under consideration in this paper, henceforth termed FETCH, is the concept realized in British English ‘fetch’ and Croatian ‘dohvatiti’. After characterizing the event structure of FETCH at the beginning, a discussion of potential coding alternatives in terms of conceptual vs. lexical chunking follows. We then compare the cross-linguistic encoding of FETCH in a sample of 29 languages and show how the different surface realizations demonstrate different instantiations of potential conceptual and lexical chunking. Moreover, we discuss whether the event concept FETCH itself is universal. Finally, we test current theories on event structures, with a focus on the often assumed binary construction scheme

The lexical semantics of imaginings : A corpus-based analysis

In this paper, I propose a decompositional lexical semantic analysis of the plural noun imaginings. The data for this study are sourced from the Corpus of Historical AmericanEnglish (COHA), and as analytical framework an object-oriented semantics based on the Unified Eventity Representation (UER) is deployed. After presenting the background to this study and introducing the data and methods, I discuss the results of the corpus data analyses. Frequencies across genres and decades, collocated adjectives and their evaluative strength, coordinated nouns, nominal genitives preceding the target word, and prepositional phrases embedded in the target word’s noun phrase are screened for their contribution to the meaning specification. The results feed into the development of a lexical semantic description for imaginings, and substantiate that the semantics of imaginings—and its corresponding verb imagine—are closely related to that of remember.Also published as: Andrea C. Schalley. 2020. The lexical semantics of imaginings – a corpus-based analysis. In: Past Imaginings: Studies in Honor of Åke Bergvall, ed. Maria Holmgren Troy, Fredrik Svensson, &amp; Andreas Nyström. Karlstad: Karlstad University Press, 209–236. ISBN: 978-91-7867-133-5</p

Ontologies and ontological methods in linguistics

In the last decade, linguists have started to develop and make use of ontologies, encouraged by the progress made in areas such as Artificial Intelligence and the Semantic Web. This paper gives an overview of notions and dimensions of “ontology” and of ontologies for and in linguistics. It discusses building blocks, design aspects, and capabilities of formal ontologies and provides some implementation pointers. The focus of this paper, however, is on linguistic research and what a modelling framework based on ontologies has to offer. Accordingly, the paper does not aim at providing an overview of specific models for computational processing. To illustrate the issues at hand, an example scenario from linguistic typology is selected instead, where the aim of describing the world's languages is approached through ontologies

Ontolinguistics: An outline

Current progress in linguistic theorizing is more and more informed by cross-linguistic investigation. Comparison of languages relies crucially on those concepts which are essentially the same across human minds, cultures, and languages, and which therefore can be activated through the use of any human language. These instances of mental universals join other less common concepts to constitute a complex structure in our minds, a network of cross-connected conceptualizations of the phenomena that make up our world. Following more and more widespread usage we call such a system of conceptualizations an 'ontology', and we submit that the most reliable basis for any cross-linguistic research lies in the common core of the different individual human ontologies. This is the basic tenet of all approaches that can properly be called ontology-based linguistics or 'ontolinguistics' for short. While concept activations depend on episodic linguistic and non-linguistic stimuli and therefore are subject to permanent change, recorded in short-term memory, the conceptual system itself, after its development, differentiation, and stabilization in the ontogeny of each agent, l is assumed to be relatively stable and stored in long-term memory. Therefore, the emphasis of ontolinguistic research is less on processing than on structure. The initial idea behind the present volume is to further instigate progress in linguistics by asking a rather underexplored question: What is the relation between the ontologies in our minds and the languages we participate in