A Property Level Analysis of Lexical Semantic Representation in Alzheimer′s Disease

1995 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 263-279 ◽  
Author(s):  
S. Smith ◽  
M. Faust ◽  
M. Beeman ◽  
L. Kennedy ◽  
D. Perry
2008 ◽  
Vol 32 (3) ◽  
pp. 683-700 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lynn Nichols

While nouns are thought to be more easily borrowed than verbs, this investigation demonstrates that there may be limitations on noun borrowing into certain languages. The case of Zuni is examined, in which conditions of contact similar to that of neighboring languages nevertheless result in a different treatment of the noun lexicon. The possibility of borrowing natural kind nouns into Zuni exists alongside a tendency against borrowing nouns of the artifact type. It is argued that the source of this tendency against artifact noun borrowing in Zuni is the grammatical complexity of the lexical semantic representation for these nouns: grammatical complexity in Zuni noun roots appears to be dispreferred. These findings belie the claim of Thomason and Kaufman (1988) that “any linguistic feature can be transferred to any other language” given an appropriate degree of contact.


2021 ◽  
Vol 8 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Chu-Ren Huang ◽  
Siaw-Fong Chung

Abstract Durative events by default are atelic. However, temporal targets are typically required for durative verbs with a rushing manner, such as ‘We are catching the 3:30 flight’ and ‘The farmer rushed to harvest before the storm’. Why and how does manner introduce delimiting temporal concepts to durative verbs? This puzzle is addressed by our current study of two near-synonymous Mandarin durative verbs describing events carried out in a rushing manner: 赶 gǎn and 抢 qiǎng. Our event-base account will examine both their compositional meanings and their constructional patterns. We will show that 赶 gǎn and 抢 qiǎng not only coerce eventive readings from their nominal objects, but also require certain delineating temporal targets. The verb 赶 gǎn requires an understood deadline, while the verb 抢 qiǎng requires the presupposition of the limited availability of the object. As neither temporal targets mark the time of the actual activities, these are exceptional cases of aktionsart. We will show that the different ways to delineate event meanings of the constructions [gǎn/qiǎng+ noun] can be predicted from the lexical meaning of the two verbs and can in turn predict the event types represented by the object with the MARVS theory. Based on this lexical semantic representation, we further show that the Generative Lexicon theory predicts the coercions of the rushing meaning from the original activity verb senses, and that the Construction Grammar theory accounts for their sharing of the same syntactic configuration.


Author(s):  
Ирина Просвиркина ◽  
Irina Prosvirkina ◽  
Мария Шаповалова ◽  
Mary Shapovalova

In this paper the communicative personality of Russian-speaking talk-show host is analyzed. The authors present the results of study of communicative personality of talk show host V. Soloviev, which were derived as the result of verbal-semantic speech level analysis. Lexical-semantic components of this level are analyzed. Moreover, in the process of this study was stated that on cognitive-value level of implementation the communicative personality of talk-show host is characterized by high level of language skills, professional competence; cultural and national identity is valued highly by the host of talk-show. It is noted, that the host of the talk-show uses different tactics, for example the tactic of taking care of his image and ignoring the image of the opponents to state a line between friends and foes. Nevertheless it is underlined that the dominance of the talk-show host and the harshness of some statements is to some degree is toned down by usage of informal communication style and ironic tonality of speech.


2017 ◽  
Vol 73 (1-2) ◽  
pp. 135-154
Author(s):  
Tanja Milosavljevic

A fragment of the dialectical linguistic image of the world which represents the concept of the human intellect is linguistically manifested through the lexical-semantic subfield of abilities, which with the subfields of temperament and character completes the lexical-semantic field of human psychological characteristics and gives a more comprehensive account of the psychological profile of the Prizren dialectical persona. Within the lexical-semantic subfield of abilities we identify two parameters for the classification of lexemes, one in the field of intellectual and one in the field of psychomotor abilities. The lexical paradigm, based on semantic fields theory, is represented as a system of units organized into smaller lexical groups: the LSG of adjectives with the hyperseme ?intellectual abilities? and the LSG of adjectives with the hyperseme ?psychomotor abilities?. The human intellectual abilities are primarily reflected in the smart - dumb opposition. The set of units used to represent the negative sphere of human intellectual abilities is disproportionately broader in comparison to the lexical groups whose constituents have a more positive connotation. The constituents of the lexical-semantic subfield abilities combine elements from the intellectual sphere of the human psyche (smart, sensible, wise, able, skillful, agile, resourceful, quickwitted, sharp; dumb, imprudent, distracted, foolish, witless, crazy, insane). Here we can clearly see the distinction between the opposites smart - dumb and smart - crazy, while on the negative axis we can note the gradual transition from a mental state into a psychological state (dumb - crazy; crazy - dumb). The number of lexical features which can be used to mark the human intellectual capacity, the choice of the lexeme used to mark a man as a bearer of these features, and the high production of expressives in the domain of human intellectual characterization indicate that the principles of the intellect have a significant role to play in the understanding of the conceptualization of an individual among various speakers of a particular dialect.


2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Penny M. Pexman

When we see or hear a word, we can rapidly bring its meaning to mind. The process that underlies this ability is quite complex. Over the past two decades, considerable progress has been made towards understanding this process. In this paper, I offer four broad principles of semantic processing derived from lexical-semantic research. The first principle is that the relationship between form and meaning is not so arbitrary and I explore that by describing efforts to understand the relationship between form and meaning, highlighting advances from my own lab on the topics of sound symbolism and iconicity. The second principle is that more is better and I summarize previous research on semantic richness effects, and how those effects reveal the nature of semantic representation. The third principle is the many and various properties of abstract concepts. I point to abstract meaning as a challenge for some theories of semantic representation. In response to that challenge, I outline what has been learned about how those meanings are acquired and represented. The fourth principle is that experience matters, and I summarize research on the dynamic and experience-driven nature of semantic processing, detailing ways in which processing is modified by both immediate and long-term context. Finally, I describe some next steps for lexical-semantic research.


2014 ◽  
Vol 48 (1) ◽  
pp. 61-84
Author(s):  
Božana Knežević ◽  
Irena Brdar

Abstract We argue that the unaccusativity phenomenon occurs in Croatian, as in many other languages. We demonstrate that unaccusative predicates not only have to meet specific (morpho)syntactic diagnostic criteria, but also that semantic criteria are involved. We show that it is possible to characterize Croatian intransitive verbs as unaccusatives using the following diagnostics: 1. past participle derivation by suffixation of -l; 2. participial adjective formation; 3. -ač (-er) nominals; 4. prefixation by the preverbs po-, do- and u-; 5. the perfective aspect; 6. resultative constructions; and 7. the possessive dative. In order to demonstrate a number of relevant semantic diagnostics, three classes of verbs are isolated, defined in terms of their lexical semantic representation and their morphosyntactic configuration: verbs of change of state, verbs of appearance and verbs of inherently directed motion


2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Jakub Flotyński

AbstractThe availability of various extended reality (XR) systems for tracking users’ and objects’ behavior opens new opportunities for analyzing users’ and objects’ interactions and autonomous actions. Such analysis can be especially useful and attainable to domain experts when it is based on domain knowledge related to a particular application, liberating the analysts from going into technical details of 3D content. Analysis of XR users’ and objects’ behavior can provide knowledge about the users’ experience, interests and preferences, as well as objects’ features, which may be valuable in various domains, e.g., training, design and marketing. However, the available methods and tools for building XR focus on 3D modeling and programming rather than knowledge representation, making them unsuitable for domain-oriented analysis. In this paper, a new visual approach to modeling explorable XR environments is proposed. It is based on a semantic representation of aspects, which extend the primary code of XR environments to register their behavior in a form explorable with reasoning and queries, appropriate for high-level analysis in arbitrary domains. It permits domain experts to comprehend and analyze what happened in an XR environment regarding users’ and objects’ actions and interactions. The approach has been implemented as an extension to MS Visual Studio and demonstrated in an explorable immersive service guide for household appliances. The evaluation results show that the approach enables efficient development of explorable XR and may be useful for people with limited technical skills.


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