Solving the elusiveness of word meanings: two arguments for a continuous meaning space for language

I explore the hypothesis that the experience of meaning discreteness when we think about the “meaning” of a word is a “communicative” illusion. The illusion is created by processing-contextual constraints that impose disambiguation on the semantic input making salient a specific interpretation within a conceptual space that is otherwise continuous. It is this salience that we experience as discreteness. The understanding of word meaning as non-discrete raises the question of what is context; what are the mechanisms of constraint that it imposes and what is the nature of the conceptual space with which pronunciations (i.e., visual/oral signs) associate themselves. I address these questions by leveraging an algebraic continuous system for word meaning that is itself constrained by two fundamental parameters: control-asymmetry and connectedness. I evaluate this model by meeting two challenges to word meaning discreteness (1) cases where the same pronunciation is associated with multiple senses that are nonetheless interdependent, e.g., English “smoke,” and (2) cases where the same pronunciation is associated with a family of meanings, minimally distinct from each other organized as a “cline,” e.g., English “have.” These cases are not marginal–they are ubiquitous in languages across the world. Any model that captures them is accounting for the meaning system for language. At the heart of the argumentation is the demonstration of how the parameterized space naturally organizes these kinds of cases without appeal for further categorization or segmentation of any kind. From this, I conclude that discreteness in word meaning is epiphenomenal: it is the experience of salience produced by contextual constraints. And that this is possible because, by and large, every time that we become consciously aware of the conceptual structure associated with a pronunciation, i.e., its meaning, we do so under real-time processing conditions which are biased toward producing a specific interpretation in reference to a specific situation in the world. Supporting it is a parameterized space that gives rise to lexico-conceptual representations: generalized algebraic structures necessary for the identification, processing, and encoding of an individual's understanding of the world

Linear Word Order Modulates the Cost of Metonymy Comprehension: Dynamics of Conceptual Composition

We investigate the relation between conceptual and syntactic structure by focusing on the phenomenon of circumstantial metonymy e.g., “Table #6 wants another pizza”. We hypothesize that the construal of a metonymic interpretation is facilitated when the metonymized argument e.g., “Table #6” is retrieved before the metonymy-trigger e.g., “wants”, since this gives the processor more time to build the event structure that metonymy demands. This predicts greater cost of metonymy composition when the argument is in object position (after the trigger) relative to subject position (before the trigger). An acceptability task shows a main effect of metonymy for both syntactic positions. A self-paced reading task demonstrates a cost for metonymy only in object position. This indicates that the cost of metonymy composition is rooted in the requirement that the conceptual structure for the metonymic argument be fully retrieved, a process constrained by the order of lexical retrieval provided by syntactic structure

Semantic combinatorial processes in argument structure: Evidence from light verbs

Any theory of how language is internally organized and how it interacts with other mental capacities must address the fundamental question of how syntactic and lexico-semantic information interact at one central linguistic compositiona

Reference assignment in Dutch : evidence for the syntax-discourse divide

Research on reference assignment points to two types of referential status: d(iscourse)-linked and non-d-linked, which, as the labels suggest are determined by whether or not the entity in question depends on information previously introduced in discourse. In this paper, we examine the online interpretation of the Dutch reflexive zich ('himself/herself) as an instance of d-linking. We show that the real-time comprehension behavior of this reflexive supports our claim that d-linking depends strictly on the coargumenthood relation between zich and its antecedent, which is reflected in phrase-structure representation. Here we show that d-linked dependencies in Dutch, just like d-linked dependencies in English, demand increased processing resources for their implementation. Results from an offline questionnaire converge with this conclusion by revealing that acceptability differences are not the source of the increased processing demands. We couch these results in a model of syntax-discourse correspondence built around the notion of coargumenthood that predicts these sources of processing cost and captures the behavior of other related dependencies

How does the sensory-motor brain integrate and give rise to cognition and learning?

The brain evolved as a sensory-motor machine that drives behavior while being linked to the world through sensors. Human cognition abstracts from these sensory-motor roots but retains intimate ties. The brain's structure reflects this history. How do neural processes at different distances from the sensory and motor surfaces integrate to achieve meaningful and grounded cognition? This is a challenge given the time-continuous and graded nature of sensory-motor processing, which enables continuous online updating. It is also a major challenge to understanding development and autonomous learning, in which the coupling across functional boundaries evolves under the influence of online activation patterns