Search results for "Semantics"
showing 10 items of 407 documents
Iconicity and semantics in sinographic typology
2022
From the 1980s, the notion of iconicity is frequently used in linguistics to describe the motivated relationship between the forms of the object and their meanings. Over the past hundred years, researchers from various countries have successively discovered iconic relationships between specific linguistic structures and structures of human experience, observable phenomena in various languages. As an ideographic script, linguistic studies always consider Chinese script as a special case compared to other scripts in linguistic study. Therefore, the problems of iconicity are mentioned much less regarding Chinese writing. In fact, by discovering the origin of the characters of this writing, we …
Evaluative linguistic expressions vs. fuzzy categories
2015
In this paper, we discuss the distinction between categories characterized by verbal labels taken from a fuzzy rating scale and special class of linguistic expressions, called evaluative. The latter form a general class of expressions that includes gradable and evaluative adjectives and their hedges. First, we will provide a brief linguistic analysis of them. Then we outline basic principles for construction of the mathematical model of semantics of evaluative expressions. In Section 3 we will analyze the concepts of rating scale with verbal labels (fuzzy rating scale), their semantics and demonstrate that the latter cannot be identified with the semantics of evaluative expressions. Finally…
The Parallel Structures Model and the weakening of implosive /s/ in Spanish
2020
En aquest article es presenten les premisses fonamentals del Model de les Estructures Paral·leles, un model fonològic relativament recent dins el paradigma de la fonologia autosegmental, i s’aplica per primera vegada a dades de l’espanyol. En concret, el treball se centra a il·lustrar els avantatges explicatius que comporta l’adopció del Model de les Estructures Paral·leles en el cas de l’anàlisi de les realitzacions de la /s/ en posició de coda seguida d’oclusiva sorda en interior de paraula, perquè l’àmplia gamma de realitzacions documentades per a aquest context en les varietats aspirants de l’espanyol planteja un repte important per a les teories representacionals actuals sobre la compo…
Semantic and action tool knowledge in the brain: Identifying common and distinct networks.
2021
Most cognitive models of apraxia assume that impaired tool use results from a deficit occurring at the conceptual level, which contains dedicated information about tool use, namely, semantic and action tool knowledge. Semantic tool knowledge contains information about the prototypical use of familiar tools, such as function (e.g., a hammer and a mallet share the same purpose) and associative relations (e.g., a hammer goes with a nail). Action tool knowledge contains information about how to manipulate tools, such as hand posture and kinematics. The present review aimed to better understand the neural correlates of action and semantic tool knowledge, by focusing on activation, stimulation an…
Beyond decomposition: Processing zero-derivations in English visual word recognition
2019
Four experiments investigate the effects of covert morphological complexity during visual word recognition. Zero-derivations occur in English in which a change of word class occurs without any change in surface form (e.g., a boat-to boat; to soak-a soak). Boat is object-derived and is a basic noun (N), whereas soak is action-derived and is a basic verb (V). As the suffix {-ing} is only attached to verbs, deriving boating from its base, requires two steps, boat(N) > boat(V) > boating(V), while soaking can be derived in one step from soak(V). Experiments 1 to 3 used masked priming at different prime durations to test matched sets of one- and two-step verbs for morphological (soaking-SOA…
Naming organic wines in French and German A Frame Semantics analysis
2019
International audience; [Context]Naming a product is giving it an identity (Lobin, 2016); when it comes to wines it is offering them, the possibility to be easily discriminated and to catch the clients’ attention. This contribution aims at analyzing the naming of organic wines in two countries: France and Germany. If naming generic wines has already been investigated especially from a lexical point of view (Herling, 2015), wine names from the organic wine industry have for the time being been left aside. In the meantime, previous studies based on authentic materials have underlined, since Lehrer, 1975, some specificities in the wine language like resorting to prototypes (Gautier & Bach, 201…
Age and Semantic Inhibition Measured by the Hayling Task: A Meta-Analysis.
2016
Objective Cognitive aging is commonly associated with a decrease in executive functioning (EF). A specific component of EF, semantic inhibition, is addressed in the present study, which presents a meta-analytic review of the literature that has evaluated the performance on the Hayling Sentence Completion test in young and older groups of individuals in order to assess the magnitude of the age effect. Method A systematic search involving Web of Science, PsyINFO, PsychARTICLE, and MedLine databases and Google Scholar was performed. A total of 11 studies were included in this meta-analysis, encompassing a total of 887 participants; 440 young and 447 older adults. The effect sizes for group dif…
Gestural Attributions as Semantics in User Interface Sound Design
2010
This paper proposes a gesture-based approach to user interface sound design, which utilises projections of body movements in sounds as meaningful attributions. The approach is founded on embodied conceptualisation of human cognition and it is justified through a literature review on the subject of interpersonal action understanding. According to the resulting hypothesis, stereotypical gestural cues, which correlate with, e.g., a certain communicative intention, represent specific non-linguistic meanings. Based on this theoretical framework, a model of a process is also outlined where stereotypical gestural cues are implemented in sound design.
An alternative perspective on “semantic P600” effects in language comprehension
2008
Abstract The literature on the electrophysiology of language comprehension has recently seen a very prominent discussion of “semantic P600” effects, which have been observed, for example, in sentences involving an implausible thematic role assignment to an argument that would be a highly plausible filler for a different thematic role of the same verb. These findings have sparked a discussion about underlying properties of the language comprehension architecture, as they have generally been viewed as a challenge to established models of language processing and specifically to the notion that syntax precedes semantics in the comprehension process. In this paper, we review the literature on se…
A Formalism Supplementing Cognitive Semantics Based on Mereology
2007
ABSTRACT This paper is motivated by and aims to supplement Cognitive Semantics. Details of this latter prominent approach within contemporary linguistic research will not be discussed here. Rather, we focus on a formalization of the concept of Gestalt and provide a formal semantics that can be used to interpret a certain formal language (LM 0) with respect to a universe of structured wholes (Gestalts). Since a great deal of the analyses of linguistic organization that has been provided by Cognitive Semantics since the mid-1970s is based on the concept of Gestalt, the semantics unfolded in the following may be viewed as an attempt to provide a starting point for supplementing the yet informa…