Cognitive Semantics : Meaning and Cognition

174 JORDAN ZLATEV
which need to be combined recursively before there can be anything resembling
concepts. The result has been something of a debate between proponents of
“pure connectionist models” and “hybrid connectionist / symbolic models” of
the grounding of meaning. However, linking embodiment and connectionism
directly is likely to lead to confusion. For one thing, connectionism covers a
whole spectrum of models that vary on properties such as pre-structuring and
biological realism. Secondly, and more importantly, connectionism is a new
kind of technology and thus provides a new kind of metaphor for the mind; but
it is not a theory about the mind and can be used even by conflicting theoretical
standpoints.
Therefore, I will take a step back and characterize independently from
neural nets one particular approach to linguistic meaning and embodiment.
For reasons that should become clear in Section 2, I will be referring to this
approach as situated embodied semantics. In Section 3 I briefly describe
Regier’s system, mentioned above, and use it as an illustration of (some
aspects of) the situated embodied approach. Section 4 discusses how “the
creativity of language”, i.e. the ability to utter and comprehend novel expressions,
could be explained from this perspective, and in Section 5 I present
what I think is the main reason for the shortcomings of the given connectionist
model and sketch a direction for future research.
2. Situated embodied semantics, grounding and neural nets
For the sake of reference, rather than with the ambition of introducing one more
“semantic theory” into the field, I call the approach to explaining linguistic
meaning that I am pursuing situated embodied semantics (cf. Zlatev 1997). In
brief, it emphasizes the following aspects of human language.
Language is situated, i.e. interwoven into the practices in which it is used;
it takes place in the world, it is not just about the world, i.e. not a “picture of
reality”. Situatedness requires interaction with an environment through sense
and motor organs, i.e. embodiment. Learning a language is achieved through
active participation in practices, “language games”, and much of this participation
can be seen as “training”. Knowing a language is practical mastery
(know-how), not the internalization of an underlying system (“la langue”,
“competence”). To know the meaning of an expression is thus to be able to use
it in appropriate situations.