Attention Neural Network for Biomedical Word Sense Disambiguation

In order to improve the disambiguation accuracy of biomedical words, this paper proposes a disambiguation method based on the attention neural network. The biomedical word is viewed as the center. Morphology, part of speech, and semantic information from 4 adjacent lexical units are extracted as disambiguation features. The attention layer is used to generate a feature matrix. Average asymmetric convolutional neural networks (Av-ACNN) and bidirectional long short-term memory (Bi-LSTM) networks are utilized to extract features. The softmax function is applied to determine the semantic category of the biomedical word. At the same time, CNN, LSTM, and Bi-LSTM are applied to biomedical WSD. MSH corpus is adopted to optimize CNN, LSTM, Bi-LSTM, and the proposed method and testify their disambiguation performance. Experimental results show that the average disambiguation accuracy of the proposed method is improved compared with CNN, LSTM, and Bi-LSTM. The average disambiguation accuracy of the proposed method achieves 91.38%.

Intensifiers in the Language of the 21st Century: Word-Building, Semantics, Syntagmatics and Dynamics of Evalution

The article considers the categories of evaluation and intensity in cognitive and pragmatic aspects. The purpose of the research is to establish the relationship between the categories of evaluation and intensity based on the material of word-building and lexical-semantic units from lexicographic sources and media and fiction texts. As a result of the research, word-building and lexical-semantic intensifiers are characterized by the use of word-building, semantic and contextual methods. The article shows such kinds of intensifiers as affixes and affixoides in neoderivatives, neoderivatives created on the base of reduplication. The article shows the estimated ambivalence of dimensional-evaluative affixes, in connection with pragmatic conditions, context and semantics of productive base. The article describes such an extension of the functional range of intensifiers as oxymoron quality and ambivalence of lexical intensifiers. The functions of the intensifiers (pragmatic and stylistic) are defined. The repeatability of syntagmatic bias models indicates the dynamics of evaluation in the class of lexical intensifiers in the Russian language of the modern period. The phenomena described in the article generally show the development of the semantic category of intensity in the Russian language of the 21 st century, which is expressed in the dynamics of its components, such as word-building means, word-building units, lexical units.

The Lexical Availability of “Daily Activities” in Learners of Spanish (SFL)

The objective of the present work, which focuses on the teaching and learning of Spanish vocabulary, is to present the lexical availability of Slovene students of Spanish as a foreign language (SFL) in the semantic category “daily activities”. The quantitative and qualitative differences and similarities of lexical availability output in this semantic category, as obtained by two groups of informants of different levels of SFL, are compared: 100 high school students (approximate level B1) and 100 university students (approximate level B2 +). The results obtained from this sample are compared with those of a study carried out by Sánchez-Saus Laserna (2011), which presents a sample of 322 SFL informants of different mother tongues in the same semantic category. This category, which is not one of those traditionally used in the studies of lexical availability, has been chosen since the lack of other grammatical categories than nouns is one of the main problems that has been attributed to the studies of lexical availability, which makes it impossible to closely reflect the vocabulary that SFL students know. Likewise, it is intended to check if the associations correspond to the grammatical category of the stimulus (in this case the verbs), since other semantic categories are indicated by the nouns. We intend to check the validity of the following hypotheses: 1) The production of lexical availability of high school students with less knowledge (B1) of Spanish is lower than that of university students (B2 +). 2) There is a qualitative similarity between the results of the two groups of Slovene SFL students. 3) For the most part, the associations correspond to the same grammatical category indicated by the cue words of the semantic category; in this case the verbs. 4) There is quantitative and qualitative similarity between the results of the present study and those of Sánchez-Saus Laserna (2011).

Интенсификаторы в русском языке XXI века: словообразование, семантика, синтагматика и динамика оценки**

Исследование выполнено в русле актуального антропоцентрического направления в лингвистике и связано с изучением активных процессов в современном русском языке, отражающих динамику русского национального менталитета и русской языковой картины мира. В статье рассматривается такое глубинное свойство русской речи, как эмоциональность, которая проявляется в языковых ка-тегориях оценочности и интенсивности.Цель исследования – установление связи между категориями оценочности и интенсивности на материале словообразовательных и лексико-семантических единиц из лексикографических источ-ников и медийных текстов.В результате исследования охарактеризованы словообразовательные и лексико-семантические интенсификаторы в функционально-прагматическом аспекте. К словообразовательным интенси-фикаторам относятся словообразовательные аффиксы, аффиксоиды (в основном размерно-оценоч-ной семантики) и отдельные способы словообразования (в частности некоторые разновидности способа сложения). К лексическим интенсификаторам относятся отдельные виды лексем: оценочно универсальные интенсификаторы; интенсификаторы, тяготеющие к выражению положительной или отрицательной оценки (в определенном контексте); интенсификаторы, выражающие (по сво-ей семантике) положительную или отрицательную оценку. В статье показано такое расширение функционального диапазона интенсификаторов, как оценочная амбивалентность размерно-оце-ночных аффиксов, оксюморонность и амбивалентность лексических интенсификаторов.Одним из векторов развития лексических интенсификаторов является синтагматическое рас-ширение, в результате которого в речи возникают и закрепляются всё новые словосочетания, не соответствующие традиции употребления и нарушающие сложившиеся правила лексической со-четаемости, закрепленные в словарях. Расширение сочетаемости служит условием семантических и оценочных трансформаций интенсификатора. Употребление интенсификатора в оценочно дис-сонирующем окружении выполняет в тексте определенные прагматические и стилистические цели (повышение экспрессивности текста, создание эффекта оксюморона, иронии или шутки). При этом обилие таких употреблений в медийных, художественных тестах и в разговорной речи, а также по-вторяемость моделей синтагматического смещения говорит о динамике развития оценки в классе лексических интенсификаторов в русском языке новейшего периода. Оценочное расширение, когда «положительно ориентированные» интенсификаторы вторгаются в зону негативных явлений, и на-оборот, негативные характеристики – в зону явлений позитивных, рассматривается как тенденция к снятию оценочных ограничений и к универсализации оценки.Явления, описанные в статье, в целом показывают развитие семантической категории интенсив-ности в русском языке XXI века, находящее выражение в динамике таких ее составляющих, как способы словообразования, словообразовательные единицы, лексические единицы.The research is based on the current anthropocentric trend in linguistics and is related to the study of active processes in the modern Russian language reflecting the dynamics of the Russian national mentality and the Russian linguistic image of the world. The paper considers such a deep property of Russian speech as emotionality, which is manifested in the language categories of evaluation and intensity.The purpose of the research is to establish the relationship between the categories of evaluation and intensity based on the material of word-building and lexical-semantic units from lexicographic sources and media texts.As a result of the research, word-building and lexical-semantic intensifiers are characterized in the functional-pragmatic aspect. Word-building intensifiers include word-formative affixes, affixoids (mainly of dimensional-evaluative semantics), and various means of word-building (in particular, some varieties of composition). Lexical intensifiers include certain types of lexemes: evaluative universal intensifiers; intensifiers that tend to express positive or negative evaluation (in a certain context); intensifiers that express (by their semantics) positive or negative evaluation. The paper shows such an extension of the functional range of intensifiers as the estimated ambivalence of dimensional-evaluative affixes, oxymoron quality, and the ambivalence of lexical intensifiers.One of the vectors of the development of lexical intensifiers is syntagmatic expansion, which results in emerging in speech and fixing new word combinations that do not correspond to the tradition of usage and violate the established rules of lexical compatibility fixed in dictionaries. The combinability extension serves as a condition for semantic and evaluative transformations of the intensifier. The use of an intensifier in an evaluative dissonant environment fulfils certain pragmatic and stylistic goals in the text (increasing the expressiveness of the text, creating the effect of an oxymoron, irony, or joke). The abundance of such instances of use in media texts, literary works, and spoken language as well as the repeatability of syntagmatic bias models indicates the dynamics of evaluation in the class of lexical intensifiers in the Russian language of the modern period. Evaluation expansion, when “positively oriented” intensifiers invade the zone of negative phenomena, and vice versa, negative characteristics in the zone of positive phenomena, is considered as a tendency to remove evaluation restrictions and to universalize evaluation.The phenomena described in the paper generally show the development of the semantic category of intensity in the Russian language of the 21st century, which is expressed in the dynamics of its components, such as word-building means, word-building units, and lexical units.

On derivatives

The question of derivates has been repeatedly raised in the teaching processes of language grammar and general linguistics. This circumstance became the basis for creating this short article. It is well known that a word-form can be changeable or unchangeable, and this fact is determined by the parts of speech. Form-changing words can undergo two types of change: inflectional and derivative. During the inflectional change, the form of the word changes, but the lexical and semantic aspects of the word do not change, i.e. its semantic and content data do not change. A classic example of this type of change is flexion of nouns.Derivation is the formation of a word from another word by the addition of non-inflectional affixes. Derivation can be of two types. The first is lexical derivation, in which the derivative affix produces a word with a different lexical content. A word-form can be another part of speech or the same part of speech but with a different lexical content. The second type of derivation is, first of all, grammatical derivation, when grammatical categories are produced. The grammatical category in general (and a word-form in general as well) includes the unity of morphological and semantical aspects. There is no separate semantics without morphology. Any semantic category and/or content must be conveyed in a specific form, so only a specific form has a specific morphosemantics, which can be produced by the grammatical derivatives. The main difference between the two types of derivation mentioned above (and therefore between the two types of derivatives) is the levels of the language hierarchy. The first type of affixes works at the lexical level of the language, while the second type derivatives produce forms at the morphological and semantic levels. The second type derivatives are inter-level affixes, because they act on two hierarchical levels. Any grammatical category includes specific morphosemantic oppositional forms. Thus, unlike inflectional affixes, the rest of the morphological affixes are all other types of inter-level derivatives. It should be noted that the preverb in Kartvelian languages ​​is the only linguistic unit with all possible functions of affix. DOWNLOADS

The Neural Basis of Semantic Prediction in Sentence Comprehension

Although prediction plays an important role in language comprehension, its precise neural basis remains unclear. This fMRI study investigated whether and how semantic-category-specific and common cerebral areas are recruited in predictive semantic processing during sentence comprehension. We manipulated the semantic constraint of sentence contexts, upon which a tool-related, a building-related, or no specific category of noun is highly predictable. This noun-predictability effect was measured not only over the target nouns but also over their preceding transitive verbs. Both before and after the appearance of target nouns, left anterior supramarginal gyrus was specifically activated for tool-related nouns and left parahippocampal place area was activated specifically for building-related nouns. The semantic-category common areas included a subset of left inferior frontal gyrus during the anticipation of incoming target nouns (activity enhancement for high predictability) and included a wide spread of areas (bilateral inferior frontal gyrus, left superior/middle temporal gyrus, left medial pFC, and left TPJ) during the integration of actually perceived nouns (activity reduction for high predictability). These results indicated that the human brain recruits fine divisions of cortical areas to distinguish different semantic categories of predicted words, and anticipatory semantic processing relies, at least partially, on top–down prediction conducted in higher-level cortical areas.

A Semantic Analysis of the Top Ten Network Buzzwords of China in 2020 from the Perspective of the Prototype Theory

With the further development of the Internet and the rapid growth of the number of netizens, there are always new network buzzwords appearing during online communication. Most of these buzzwords don’t come out of nowhere but are variants of the extant words or expressions. They inherit, extend or sometimes overturn the original meanings. To some extent, these semantic variations not only influence the language system, expanding the semantic category of words, but also reflect people’s cognition and emotions. Therefore, based on the prototype theory, this paper aims to analyze the semantic variations of the top ten network buzzwords of China in 2020 from three aspects: horizontally, the extension of meanings of the basic-level words; vertically, the emergence of new subordinate-level words; and the combination of the two ways of variation. The analysis of these words shows complex emotions of people, including positive life attitudes, nostalgia to the past and helplessness under huge pressures in real life.

‘Path’ and ‘Manner’ in The Serialization of Motion Verbs

Verbs are one of the most basic vocabulary elements of the language. These words express the being, manners and movements of beings in the universe. However, in order to express the movements of living and non-living beings in the universe, the verb category creates syntactic and semantic situations by performing some combinations within itself. Because the many movements of many beings in the universe cause endless combinations to appear. In order to express this, the verb category creates various combinations within itself. The most typical example of this is seen between motion verbs, which is a semantic class, and serial verb structures, which are a syntactic and semantic class. Although there have been various studies on motion verbs, the limits of these verbs have not been determined in Turkish studies. Motion verbs, which can be considered as verbs expressing the displacement of beings in the universe, are closely related to serial verb structures, which is a syntactic and semantic category. Serial verb structures contain at least one motion verb in surface or deep structure. According to Talmy's typology, these verbs of motion mark the "way" where the movement takes place, or the "style", which is the way it takes place. In this study, the roles of "path" and "manner" in the serialization process of motion verbs are discussed in the Turkish context.

ITERATIVENESS AS ONE OF THE TYPES OF PREDICATE PLURALITY OF SITUATIONS IN THE LANGUAGE OF THE FOREST YUKAGHIRS

Актуальность данного исследования обусловлена тем, что в юкагирском языкознании глагол языка лесных юкагиров не был изучен с точки выражения функционально-семантической категории аспектуальности. Теоретико-методологической основой явились труды известных отечественных ученых в области аспектологии: Ю. С. Маслова, А. В. Бондарко, В. С. Храковского и др. Известно, что аспектуальность — функционально-семантическая категория, которая включает в себя взаимодействующие языковые средства (морфологические, словообразовательные, лексические и др.), служащих для передачи характера и распределения действия во времени. В настоящей статье впервые дается описание основных морфологических и лексических способов выражения одного из типов количественной аспектуальности в языке лесных юкагиров – итеративности. На основе фактического языкового материала делаются выводы, что для реализации итеративного значения используются специализированные морфологические (грамматические) и лексические средства. Определен основной грамматический инвентарь средств передачи итеративного значения в языке лесных юкагиров. Так, аффиксы -и-, -йи, -ийи-, -уйи- с итеративной семантикой являются универсальными, т. е. присоединяются к основам как переходных, так и непереходных глаголов. Показателями итеративности для непереходных глаголов являются аффиксы -й-, -сьии-, -(н)дьи-, -дьаа-, для переходных — -т-, -сь-. Итеративное значение передается и хабитуальными показателями. В языке лесных юкагиров при помощи суффиксов -ну-, -нун-, -нуну- выражается хабитуальное значение, т. е. регулярная или постоянная повторяемость действия, являющегося способностью, склонностью либо характерной чертой участника того или иного события. К лексическим средствам выражения идеи итеративности могут быть отнесены наречия времени типа пугэмэ ʽлетомʼ, йоулэмэ ʽвечеромʼ, идэй-нэдэ ʽиногдаʼ, послелоги типа чичкин ʽв течениеʼ, обозначающие повторяющиеся периоды времени; образа действия типа ускуом ʽобычноʼ, чуотэ ʽвсегдаʼ, обозначающие относительно регулярное повторение действия; наречия меры и степени типа атахлидьэ ʽдваждыʼ, ньингэльи-дьэ ʽмного раз, многождыʼ, обозначающие количество проявления действия. The relevance of this research is due to the fact that in Yukaghir linguistics the verb of the forest Yukaghir language has not been studied from the point of expression of the functional-semantic category of aspectuality. The theoretical and methodological basis was the works of famous Russian scientists in the field of aspectology: Yu. S. Maslova, A. V. Bondarko, V. S. Khrakovsky and others. It is known that aspectuality is a functional-semantic category that includes interacting linguistic means (morphological, word-formation, lexical, etc.) that serve to convey character and distribution actions in time. This article is the first to describe the main morphological and lexical ways of expressing one of the types of quantitative aspectuality in the language of the forest Yukaghirs — iteration. On the basis of the actual linguistic material, it is concluded that specialized morphological (grammatical) and lexical means are used to implement the iterative meaning. The main grammatical inventory of means of conveying iterative meaning in the language of the forest Yukaghirs has been determined. So, the affixes -yi, -ii-, -ui- with iterative semantics are universal, i.e. join the stems of both transitive and intransitive verbs. Indicators of iteration for intransitive verbs are the affixes -y-, -sii-, — (n) dy-, -dya-, for transitive — -t-, -s-. The iterative value is also conveyed by the habitual metrics. In the language of the forest Yukaghirs, the suffixes -nu-, -nun-, -nunu- are used to express the habitual meaning, i. e. regular or constant repetition of an action that is an ability, inclination, or a characteristic feature of a participant in an event. The lexical means of expressing the idea of iteration can include adverbs of time such as pugame ʽin summerʼ, youleme ʽeveningʼ, ideinede ʽsometimesʼ, postpositions such as chichkin ʽduringʼ, designating repeating periods of time; actions such as uskuom ʽusuallyʼ, chuote ʽalwaysʼ, denoting a relatively regular repetition of an action; adverbs of the measure and degree type as atahlid'e ʽtwiceʼ, n'ingel'id'e ʽmany timesʼ, denoting the number of manifestations of the action.

Category Production Norms for 117 Concrete and Abstract Categories

We present a database of category production (aka semantic fluency) norms collected in the UK for 117 categories (67 concrete and 50 abstract). Participants verbally named as many category members as possible within 60 seconds, resulting in a large variety of over 2000 generated member concepts. The norms feature common measures of category production (production frequency, mean ordinal rank, first rank frequency), as well as response times for all first-named category members, and typicality ratings collected from a separate participant sample. We provide two versions of the dataset: a referential version that groups together responses that relate to the same referent (e.g., hippo, hippopotamus) and a full version that retains all original responses to enable future lexical analysis. Correlational analyses with previous norms from the US and UK demonstrate both consistencies and differences in English-language norms over time and between geographical regions. Further exploration of the norms reveals a number of structural and psycholinguistic differences between abstract and concrete categories. The data and analyses will be of use in the fields of cognitive psychology, neuropsychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive modelling, and to any researchers interested in semantic category structure. All data, including original participant recordings, are available at https://osf.io/jgcu6/.