Search results for "polysemy"
showing 10 items of 23 documents
Defining classifier regions for WSD ensembles using word space features
2006
Based on recent evaluation of word sense disambiguation (WSD) systems [10], disambiguation methods have reached a standstill. In [10] we showed that it is possible to predict the best system for target word using word features and that using this 'optimal ensembling method' more accurate WSD ensembles can be built (3-5% over Senseval state of the art systems with the same amount of possible potential remaining). In the interest of developing if more accurate ensembles, w e here define the strong regions for three popular and effective classifiers used for WSD task (Naive Bayes – NB, Support Vector Machine – SVM, Decision Rules – D) using word features (word grain, amount of positive and neg…
Verbalization of nominalizations: A typological commentary on the article by Nikki van de Pol
2019
Abstract The present article provides a typological commentary on the article by Nikki van de Pol (2019) on the history of the English gerund. It is shown that in spite of certain idiosyncratic aspects, the history of the verbal gerund illustrates a well-known grammaticalization path of verbalization, whereby deverbal nouns are first grammaticalized into nonfinite forms (participles, infinitives, converbs), and may later be integrated into the verbal paradigm. It is further suggested that the mixed behavior attested for the verbal gerund, which deviates both from the nominal and from the clausal prototype, may be universally supported by constructional polysemy and blending with constructio…
Case and Contact Linguistics
2012
Abstract Language contact affects case categories in various ways. This article examines the effects of contacts between linguistic codes (languages, unrelated or related, or language varieties): changes in one code on the model of another. It deals with inflectional case markers, affixes, and adpositions from which they evolve. Though most adpositions express more specific relations, some are relatively desemanticised. Affixes and case-like adpositions may fulfil similar functions; the close correspondences between Dravidian case suffixes and Indic postpositions. Case markers and case functions are acquired through what is called ‘borrowing’, ‘diffusion’, ‘transfer’, ‘interference’, ‘repli…
Do the right thing! A study on social representation of obedience and disobedience
2014
Abstract The present research is aimed at investigating through a mixed-method approach the dimensions underlying the psychosocial constructs of obedience, disobedience and the relations between them. To this end, we consider the attitudes toward (dis)obedience being socially constructed, and we chose the theory of social representations (Abric, 2003; Moscovici, 1961) as the theoretical framework of this study. The data, collected on a sample of 190 individuals, allowed us to define these social objects, reducing both their complexity and polysemy. Obedience and disobedience were both seen by research participants as context-dependent behaviours, neither positive nor negative, per se . Also…
Processing and representation of ambiguous words in Chinese reading: Evidence from eye movements
2016
In the current study, we used eye tracking to investigate whether senses of polysemous words and meanings of homonymous words are represented and processed similarly or differently in Chinese reading. Readers read sentences containing target words which was either homonymous words or polysemous words. The contexts of text preceding the target words were manipulated to bias the participants toward reading the ambiguous words according to their dominant, subordinate, or neutral meanings. Similarly, disambiguating regions following the target words were also manipulated to favor either the dominant or subordinate meanings of ambiguous words. The results showed that there were similar eye movem…
Polysemy in Controlled Natural Language Texts
2015
Computational semantics and logic-based controlled natural languages (CNL) do not address systematically the word sense disambiguation problem of content words, i.e., they tend to interpret only some functional words that are crucial for construction of discourse representation structures. We show that micro-ontologies and multi-word units allow integration of the rich and polysemous multi-domain background knowledge into CNL thus providing interpretation for the content words. The proposed approach is demonstrated by extending the Attempto Controlled English (ACE) with polysemous and procedural constructs resulting in a more natural CNL named PAO covering narrative multi-domain texts.
The barratry of the shipmaster in early modern law: polysemy and mos Italicus
2019
Summary ‘Barratry’ is a polysemic term: it means deceit, bribe, simony, and fraud of the shipmaster. This article seeks to trace the origins of the word and to explore its different meanings, focusing especially on the influence that older meanings had on the development of more recent ones. This operation is of particular importance to understand the meaning of barratry that would appear for last – that of fraud of the shipmaster. By the time civil lawyers started dealing with maritime barratry, they were already well familiar with the other meanings of the term. This probably favoured the adaptation process, but it also left a deep mark on its outcome: the weight of those other meanings o…
Sulla corporeità del processo cognitivo nei poemi omerici: il caso di μαίνομαι
2019
The aim of this paper is to shed light on the striking connection between, on the one hand, the cognitive process in Homer and, on the other, the verb μαίνομαι (and the forms from the perfect stem μεμον-/μεμα-), which represents the ultimate example of Ancient Greek verb conveying the idea of “raging, being furious/mad/insane”. Besides those common meanings, the analysis of the Iliad and the Odyssey shows that the semantic complexity of μαίνομαι actually includes the idea of “thinking”, due to the inner polysemy of the IE root *men-, to which the verb at issue traces back, as well as the Homeric lack of distinction between body and mind. More specifically, the verb also refers to a range of…
Polysemy and gestaltist computation. some notes on gestaltist compositionality
2019
The paper is devoted to the concept of Gestaltist Compositionality. It is divided into two parts. The first part will introduce a minimal definition of «Gestaltist Compositionality». Moreover, it will prove that the computations implemented by this model of compositionality are sufficiently flexible to ensure the presence of several orders of semantic determination. The second part will be devoted to an investigation of the consequences of this result with particular reference to the identification of some versions of compositionality which relax the condition of semantic atomism without weakening the links of determination between understanding of the compounds and understanding of the com…
Towards a Reconstruction of Indo-European Culture: Semantic Functions of IE *men-
2003
The aim of this paper is to recover the semantic values involved in IE *men- in order to reconstruct some cognitive process modalities in regard to "Indo-European ideology" (Campanile 1992). After focusing on the apparent semantic split noticeable between Homeric Greek and Vedic in the uses derived from *men-, I argue for the presence of striking parallel paths using the methods of textual comparison. Then, the role of lexical nucleus' polysemy in originating the linguistic change is highlighted, without disregarding an Indo-European typological perspective within the realm of the so-called "basic lexicon" to which the root at issue belongs.