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

A Lexical Semantics for Refugee, Asylum Seeker and Boat People in Australian English

The terms refugee, asylum seeker and boat people are of particular prominence in the Australian discourse surrounding immigration policy, and are widely used in day-to-day conversation among Australians. Despite their frequency of use, a lexico-semantic study of the terms has not been carried out to date. This paper fills this gap by proposing a semantic analysis of them. The study is based on a corpus created from online comments to the Australian television programme Go Back To Where You Came From (Season 1, SBS 2011). After introducing the data and analytical framework—object-oriented semantics—we discuss the terms’ lexical semantics. While the discussion of immigration issues is emotionally laden, our results suggest that the default semantics of the terms do not include evaluative components. Rather, speakers tend to evaluate the agreed-upon semantic specifications differently depending on their political views. We show how each term represents a specific node in a network of concepts for translocating individuals, but may in context also be applied to neighbouring nodes that lack a lexicalization. While the terms are seemingly used interchangeably, our analysis instead emphasizes the influence of the underlying conceptual structure and the resulting constrained plasticity of nominal meaning in context

Going beyond archiving : A collaborative tool for typological research

The work described in this paper aims to outline some of the design aspects for a collaborative tool for typological research. This tool is designed to allow for the collation, from multiple contributors, of linguistic examples and their analysis with regards to an open set of variation dimensions of both onomasiological and semasiological nature. The resulting knowledge base combines linguistically relevant categories of human conceptualisation (e.g. in-group, such as ethnic or family group, categories) together with their linguistic coding (e.g. in gender affixes, verbal agreement), all based on actual linguistic examples from diverse natural languages as its underlying data-driven foundation. The system is based on Semantic Web technology and hence can be queried in a flexible way that allows for combining any variation dimensions within a query (e.g. it allows to answer questions such as which languages exhibit joint attention marking by way of verbal suffixing). We will focus on design aspects relating to sustainable data. How can sustainable data for such a project be delimited? Surely, this encompasses commonly accepted aspects such as standards conformity, longevity, and accessibility, which we will address in the paper. Additionally and in particular, however, we will argue that user orientation and involvement is a critical factor. Following on from this, the tool is designed in a way that it (i) does not require linguistic users to be trained extensively in system usage, (ii) allows linguists to deploy their standard methods of data entry (e.g. interlinear glossing), and (iii) provides contributors with immediate integration of their own with previously entered data and access to the resulting analysis (i.e. querying) and research potential. The paper will roughly be structured as follows: We will describe the background and aims of the project, and contextualise it in relation to other similar projects. We will then concentrate on how sustainability is addressed, discussing a number of different facets of sustainability. This includes data storage formats, user interface and workflow modelling, knowledge base design, and system features (in particular system output). We will also outline some problems that have arisen so far and close with an outlook on future development