Introduction

In order to help to explain cognition, cognitive structures are assumed to be present in the mind/brain. While the empirical investigation of such structures is the task of cognitive psychology, the other cognitive science disciplines like linguistics, philosophy and artificial intelligence have an important role in suggesting hypotheses. Researchers in these disciplines increasingly test such hypotheses by empirical means themselves. In philosophy, the traditional way of referring to such structures is via concepts, i.e. those mental entities by which we conceive reality and with the help of which we reason and plan. Linguists traditionally refer to the cognitive structures as meanings—at least those linguists with a mentalistic concept of meaning do who do not think of meaning as extra-mental entities.

Modification and Default Inheritance

Modification usually decreases the judged likelihood of typicality statements. People judge “Old coyotes howl” as less likely than just “Coyotes howl”. This paper addresses this so-called modification effect. In order to analyse the effect, we propose an extended modification model based on the selective modification model by Smith et al. (1988) and Barsalou’s (1992) frames. In this model we introduce cross-attributional constraintsModification effect, relevant modification that explain how a change in one dimension leads to an alteration of another attribute, especially if the modifierModification is not typical. Finally, we discuss data from Connolly et al. (2007) and present new experimental evidence from an explorative study.

Influence of Manner Adverbs on Action Verb Processing

Language-motor interaction is suggested by the involvement of motor areas in action-related language processing. In a double-dissociation paradigm we aimed to investigate motor cortical involvement in the processing of hand- and foot-related action verbs combined with manner adverbs. In two experiments using different tasks, subjects were instructed to respond with their hand or foot following the presentation of an adverb-verb combination. Experiment 1, which prompted reactions via color changes of the stimuli combined with a semantic decision, showed an influence of manner adverbs on response times. This was visible in faster responses following intensifying adverbs compared with attenuating adverbs. Additionally, an interaction between implied verb effector and response effector manifested in faster response times for matching verb-response conditions. Experiment 2, which prompted reactions directly by the adverb type (intensifying vs. attenuating), revealed an interaction between manner adverbs and response effector with faster hand responses following intensifying compared with attenuating adverbs. Additional electroencephalography (EEG) recordings in Experiment 2 revealed reduced beta-desynchronization for congruent verb-response conditions in the case of foot responses along with faster response times. Yet, a direct modulation of verb-motor priming by adverbs was not found. Taken together, our results indicate an influence of manner adverbs on the interplay of language processing and motor behavior. Results are discussed with respect to embodied cognition theories.

Counting Possible Configurations

It is often assumed that a requirement for counting objects is that they do not overlap. However, this condition can be violated. The paper deals, specifically, with counting objects that consist of parts, that is, with configurations. One example is outfit as a configuration of articles of clothing; notice that one article of clothing may be part of different outfits. The article develops an analysis of such configurational entities as individual concepts. It investigates the interaction of noun phrases based on such nouns with modal operators and in collective and cumulative interpretations.

Operationalizing the Role of Context in Language Variation: The Role of Perspective Alignment in the Spanish Imperfective Domain

We present a cognitively grounded analysis of the pattern of variation that underlies the ​use of two aspectual markers in Spanish (the Simple-Present marker, Ana baila ‘Ana dances’, and the Present-Progressive marker, Ana está bailando ‘Ana is dancing’) when they express an event-in-progress reading. This analysis is centered around one fundamental communicative goal, which we term perspectivealignment: the bringing of the hearer’s perspective closer to that of the speaker. Perspective alignment optimizes the tension between two nonlinguistic constraints: Theory of Mind, which gives rise to linguisticexpressivity, and Common Ground, which gives rise to linguisticeconomy. We propose that, linguistically, perspectivealignment capitalizes on lexicalized meanings, such as the progressive meaning, that can bring the hearer to the “here and now”. In Spanish, progressive meaning can be conveyed with the Present-Progressive marker regardless of context. By contrast, if the Simple-Present marker is used for that purpose, it must be in a context of shared perceptual access between speaker and hearer; precisely, a condition that establishes perspectivealignment non-linguistically. Support for this analysis comes from a previously observed yet unexplained pattern of contextually-determined variation for the use of the Simple-Present marker in Iberian and Rioplatense (vs. Mexican) Spanish—in contrast to the preference across all three varieties for the use of the Present-Progressive marker—to express an event-in-progress reading.

When Mechanical Computations Explain Better

In this paper I defend the epistemic value of the representational-computational view of cognition by arguing that it has explanatory merits that cannot be ignored. To this end, I focus on the virtue of a computational explanation of optic ataxia, a disorder characterized by difficulties in executing visually-guided reaching tasks, although ataxic patients do not exhibit any specific disease of the muscular apparatus. I argue that addressing cases of patients who are suffering from optic ataxia by invoking a causal role for internal representations is more effective than merely relying on correlations between bodily and environmental variables. This argument has consequences for the epistemic assessment of radical enactivism, whichRE invokes the Dynamical System Theory as the best tool for explaining cognitive phenomena.

A Compositional Pluralist Semantics for Extensional and Attitude Verbs

We propose a new account of linguistic content that reconciles content-pluralism with compositionality. This is achieved by integrating truth-conditional content and attitude report content into a single notion of content. A parametrized version of this notion (with parameters for agents, times, and information states) serves as input to the compositional semantic machinery. By supplying different parameter-values to the parametrized contents of their complements, different verbs select for different components of the complement’s integrated content. The resulting account explains the different substitution properties of extensional and attitude constructions and captures the role of agents’ epistemicperspective in the determination of attitude content. The account improves upon other accounts of truth-conditional and attitude content (esp. two-dimensional semantics) by interpreting different occurrences of an expression—in extensional and in attitude embeddings—as objects of the same semantic type, and by explaining the substitution-resistance of attitudinal embeddings of extensional constructions.

An XMG Account of Multiplicity of Meaning in Derivation

In this paper, we tackle the issue of multiplicity of meaning in derivation using Frame Semantics and eXtensible MetaGrammar (XMG). We use corpus extracted data to identify the range of readings -al derivatives exhibit and identify prominent constraints on the types of situations and entities -al targets. These constraints have the form of type constraints and specify which arguments in the frame of the verbal base are compatible with the referential arguments of the derivative. The introduction of these constraints into the semantics of an affix allows one to predict and generate those readings which are possible for a given derivative and, at the same time, rule out those readings which are not possible. Finally, as a proof of concept, we model these constraints using XMG, and check whether the output resulting of this XMG description is consistent with the range of readings observed in the corpus.

Extremes are Typical. A Game Theoretical Derivation

In this paper we argue that a typical member of a class, or category, is an extreme, rather than a central, member of this category. Making use of a formal notion of representativeness, we can say that a typical member of a category is a stereotype of this category. In the second part of the paper we show that this account of typicality can be given a rational motivation by providing a game-theoretical derivation.

Linguistic Relativity and Flexibility of Mental Representations: Color Terms in a Frame Based Analysis

This paper connects the issue of the influence of language on conceptual representations, known as Linguistic Relativity, with some issues pertaining to concepts’ structure and retrieval. In what follows, I present a model of the relation between linguistic information and perceptual information in concepts using frames as a format of mental representation, and argue that this model not only accommodates the empirical evidence presented by the linguistic relativity debate, but also sheds some light on unanswered questions regarding conceptual representations’ structure. A fundamental assumption is that mental representations can be conceptualised as complex functional structures whose components can be dynamically and flexibly recruited depending on the tasks at hand; the components include linguistic and non-linguistic elements. This kind of model allows for the representation of the interaction between linguistic and perceptual information and accounts for the variable influence that color labels have on non-linguistic tasks. The paper provides some example of strategy shifting and flexible recruitment of linguistic information available in the literature and explains them using frames.