6. Development of Bilingual Semantic Norms: Can Two Be One?

2013 ◽  
pp. 103-124 ◽  
Author(s):  
Elizabeth D. Peña ◽  
Lisa M. Bedore ◽  
Christine Fiestas
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Norms

The Methodological Argument for Informational Teleosemantics

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Karen Neander
Keyword(s):  
Information Processing ◽  
Good Reason ◽  
Proper Function ◽  
Basic Form ◽  
Explanatory Role ◽  
Proper Functioning ◽  
Processing Approach ◽  
Semantic Norms ◽  
Information Processing Approach

Teleosemantic theories are diverse, but they all endorse the claim that semantic norms, to do with correct and incorrect representation, derive in part at least from functional norms, to do with normal or proper functioning. Informational teleosemantics adds that semantic norms also derive from natural-factiveinformation. In this chapter, The author starts with the premise defended in chapter 3–– in explaining how bodies and brains operate, biologists use a notion of normal-proper function. To this the author adds that the same notion of function is used in explaining cognitive (including perceptual) capacities, and then argue that, given an information-processing approach, the norms of proper functioning are thus wedded to the aboutness of natural-factive information, so that a basic form of normative aboutness is posited. This elucidates the explanatory role of positing nonconceptual representations, establishes the scientific credentials of informational teleosemantics, and gives us good reason to try to solve its alleged problems. In the last few sections, the author argues that the main naturalistic “alternatives” to teleosemantics also have apparently ineliminableteleosemantic commitments.

scholarly journals The Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms: multidimensional measures of perceptual and action strength for 40,000 English words

2019 ◽  
Vol 52 (3) ◽  
pp. 1271-1291 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dermot Lynott ◽  
Louise Connell ◽  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
James Brand ◽  
James Carney
Keyword(s):  
Web Application ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Grounded Cognition ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Link Type ◽  
Semantic Norms ◽  
Perceptual Modalities ◽  
Sensorimotor Information ◽  
Science Framework ◽  
Amazon's Mechanical Turk

AbstractSensorimotor information plays a fundamental role in cognition. However, the existing materials that measure the sensorimotor basis of word meanings and concepts have been restricted in terms of their sample size and breadth of sensorimotor experience. Here we present norms of sensorimotor strength for 39,707 concepts across six perceptual modalities (touch, hearing, smell, taste, vision, and interoception) and five action effectors (mouth/throat, hand/arm, foot/leg, head excluding mouth/throat, and torso), gathered from a total of 3,500 individual participants using Amazon’s Mechanical Turk platform. The Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms are unique and innovative in a number of respects: They represent the largest-ever set of semantic norms for English, at 40,000 words × 11 dimensions (plus several informative cross-dimensional variables), they extend perceptual strength norming to the new modality of interoception, and they include the first norming of action strength across separate bodily effectors. In the first study, we describe the data collection procedures, provide summary descriptives of the dataset, and interpret the relations observed between sensorimotor dimensions. We then report two further studies, in which we (1) extracted an optimal single-variable composite of the 11-dimension sensorimotor profile (Minkowski 3 strength) and (2) demonstrated the utility of both perceptual and action strength in facilitating lexical decision times and accuracy in two separate datasets. These norms provide a valuable resource to researchers in diverse areas, including psycholinguistics, grounded cognition, cognitive semantics, knowledge representation, machine learning, and big-data approaches to the analysis of language and conceptual representations. The data are accessible via the Open Science Framework (http://osf.io/7emr6/) and an interactive web application (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/psychology/lsnorms/).

scholarly journals The Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms: Multidimensional measures of Perceptual and Action Strength for 40,000 English words

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Dermot Lynott ◽  
Louise Connell ◽  
Marc Brysbaert ◽  
James Brand ◽  
James Carney
Keyword(s):  
Web Application ◽  
Open Science ◽  
Grounded Cognition ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Semantic Norms ◽  
Perceptual Modalities ◽  
Sensorimotor Information ◽  
Science Framework ◽  
Amazon's Mechanical Turk ◽  
Decision Times

Sensorimotor information plays a fundamental role in cognition. However, existing materials that measure the sensorimotor basis to word meanings and concepts have been restricted in sample size and breadth of sensorimotor experience. Here, we present norms of sensorimotor strength for 39,707 concepts across six perceptual modalities (touch, hearing, smell, taste, vision, and interoception) and five action effectors (mouth/throat, hand/arm, foot/leg, head excluding mouth/throat, and torso), gathered from a total of 3,500 individual participants using Amazon's Mechanical Turk platform. The Lancaster Sensorimotor Norms are unique and innovative in a number of respects: they represent the largest ever set of semantic norms for English at 40 thousand words x 11 dimensions (plus several informative cross-dimensional variables); they extend perceptual strength norming to the new modality of interoception; and they include the first norming of action strength across separate bodily effectors. In the first study, we describe the data collection procedures, provide summary descriptives of the dataset, and interpret the relations observed between sensorimotor dimensions. We then report two further studies that i) extract an optimal single-variable composite of the 11-dimension sensorimotor profile (Minkowski 3 strength), and ii) demonstrate the utility of both perceptual and action strength in facilitating lexical decision times and accuracy in two separate datasets. These norms provide a valuable resource to researchers in diverse areas including psycholinguistics, grounded cognition, cognitive semantics, knowledge representation, machine learning, and big data approaches to the analysis of language and conceptual representations. The data are accessible via the Open Science Framework (http://osf.io/7emr6/ ) and an interactive web application (https://www.lancaster.ac.uk/psychology/lsnorms/).

Are There Real Rules for Adding?

Dialogue ◽  
2010 ◽  
Vol 49 (3) ◽  
pp. 455-477
Author(s):  
Jennifer L. Woodrow
Keyword(s):  
Social Practices ◽  
Starting Point ◽  
The World ◽  
Semantic Norms

ABSTRACT: I argue that mathematical norms are real. Semantic norms, including mathematical norms for adding, are governed by social practices of undertaking and attributing meaning, and this fact has obscured the objectivity of norms from view. However, a conception of human normativity that takes as its starting point that humans are part of the world undercuts the misconception that our practices are not sufficient to ground real meaning.

scholarly journals A set of semantic norms for German and Italian

2010 ◽  
Vol 43 (1) ◽  
pp. 97-109 ◽  
Author(s):  
Gerhard Kremer ◽  
Marco Baroni
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Norms

scholarly journals Wörter im Zweifel. Ansätze einer linguistisch begründeten kritischen Semantik

2003 ◽  
Vol 16 (4) ◽  
Author(s):  
Jörg Kilian
Keyword(s):  
Social Stratification ◽  
Language Use ◽  
Semantic Network ◽  
Theoretic Approach ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Language History ◽  
Semantic Norms ◽  
Language Norms ◽  
Public Speakers ◽  
The Relationship

Within the framework of pronunciation, morphology, and syntax, linguistic doubts and uncertainties belong to the everyday business and everyday life of linguists and public speakers. Cases of lexical semantic doubts, however, have been brushed aside by post-Saussurian and all the more by post-Bloomfieldian linguists so far. This paper deals with such lexical semantic doubts and uncertainties which not only rise from language use within "parole" but are caused by a conflict of opposite or even contradictory language norms of different "langue"-varieties (e.g. the adjective positive as a medical term and in everyday colloquial language). Proceeding from an intensive discussion of the relationship between language use, language norms, and language system with special reference to Saussure, Hjelmslev, and Coseriu, the paper presents a theoretical approach to linguistically founded criticism of semantic norms by way of embedding lexical semantics into a framework of "Existenzweisen" (focusing on language use, norms, and system), "Existenzformen" (in particular norms of special discourses and varieties), and "language history and social stratification" (in particular age-based vocabularies and semantics). Finally, the paper turns this theoretic approach into practice by way of describing, explaining, and solving semantic doubts of the German word Zigeuner (gipsy). This example taken from the discourse on "political correctness" is investigated in the broader context of the word's historical, semantic, and pragmatic dimensions in different German discourses and varieties. The systematic relations between the various usages are presented in the form of a pragmatic and semantic network displaying the interconnections and borders between the meanings and gives recommendations to the word's use.

scholarly journals Semantic Norm Extrapolation is a Missing Data Problem

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Bryor Snefjella ◽  
Idan Blank
Keyword(s):  
Missing Data ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Measurement Instrument ◽  
Real Data ◽  
Underlying Structure ◽  
Simple Method ◽  
Missing Data Problem ◽  
Partially Observed ◽  
Data Problem ◽  
Semantic Norms

For close to 70 years psychologists have studied word meaning using a simple method: participants rate words on some theoretically motivated property (e.g. pleasantness, familiarity) using a Likert scale as the measurement instrument. Such semantic judgments serve as a means of interrogating the underlying structure of lexical semantic constructs, to select stimuli for experiments, or as covariates in models predicting brain or behaviour. Recently, there has been a surge of interest in using computational distributional semantic word representations and supervised learning to predict semantic judgments on Likert scales for words lacking empirical measurements. We call this task semantic norm extrapolation. A significant body of work has developed showing methods for semantic norm extrapolation are often highly accurate. The impressive performance of models for this task may give the appearance that non-empirical, machine learning derived estimates of semantic norms are interchangeable with empirical measurements of semantic norms. Herein, we argue that this is not the case, and that all extant methods for semantic norm extrapolation are more problematic than the literature suggests. Naive use of extrapolated semantic norms should be expected to yield biased and anti-conservative analyses. We make this argument using a mixture of 1) the principles of analysis of partially observed data, 2) simulations, and 3) a real-data example. Achieving sound inference when using semantic norm extrapolation requires a conceptual and methodological shift from treating semantic norm extrapolation as a prediction problem to treating it as a missing data problem. This shift in perspective also lays bare problems in default analytical procedures of semantic norms and megastudy data, and surprisingly suggests that semantic norm extrapolation --- when done using recommended procedures for analysis of partially observed data --- should be default methodological practice.

A cross-linguistic comparison of Spanish and English semantic norms: Looking at core features

2020 ◽  
Vol 41 (2) ◽  
pp. 285-297
Author(s):  
Jorge Vivas ◽  
Boris Kogan ◽  
Sofía Romanelli ◽  
Francisco Lizarralde ◽  
Luis Corda
Keyword(s):  
Dimensional Space ◽  
Specific Pattern ◽  
Cultural Foundations ◽  
Core Concepts ◽  
Semantic Norms ◽  
Sociocultural Diversity ◽  
Geometric Technique ◽  
Feature Norms ◽  
Concrete Concepts ◽  
Core Features

AbstractIt has been suggested that human communities that share their basic cultural foundations evince no remarkable differences concerning the characterization of core concepts. However, the small but existing differences among them reflect their sociocultural diversity. This study compares 219 concrete concepts common to both Spanish and English semantic feature norms in order to assess whether core features of concepts follow a universal or cultural language-specific pattern. Concepts were compared through a geometric technique of vector comparison in the Euclidean n-dimensional space alongside the calculation of the network’s degree of centrality. The role of cognate status was also explored by repeating the former analysis separating cognate from noncognate words. Taken together, our data show that languages are structurally similar independent of the cognate status of words, further suggesting that there are some sort of core features common to both languages.

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