Cognitive Semantics : Meaning and Cognition

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SOME TENETS OF COGNITIVE SEMANTICS 25 VI. Concepts show prototype effects (instead of following the Aristotelian paradigm based on necessary and sufficient conditions). The classical account of concepts within philosophy is Aristotle’s theory of necessary and sufficient conditions. However, one very often encounters problems when trying to apply the Aristotelian theory to concepts represented in natural language. As a result of a growing dissatisfaction with the classical theory of concepts, prototype theory was developed within cognitive psychology. 6 Within cognitive semantics, one attempts to account for prototype effects of concepts. A concept is often represented in the form of an image schema and such schemas can show variations just like concepts normally do. This kind of phenomenon is much more difficult to model using traditional symbolic structures. 3. Fundamentals of a formal cognitive semantics Here, I will only outline the first steps in developing a cognitive semantics based on conceptual spaces. According to the cognitive view, semantics is a relation between language and a cognitive structure, and I submit here that the appropriate framework for the cognitive structure is a conceptual space. On this assumption, formulating a semantics for a specific language can be broken down into two major steps: (1) To specify the mapping between the lexicon of the language and the appropriate conceptual spaces. (2) To describe the operations on the image schemas (which are defined with the aid of the conceptual space) that correspond to different syntactic formation rules. In this section, I will discuss only the first step. Following the technical style of philosophical semantics, one can define an interpretation for a language L as a mapping of the components of L onto a conceptual space. As a first element of such a mapping, individual names are assigned vectors (i.e., points in the conceptual space) or partial vectors (i.e., points with some arguments undetermined). In this way, each name (referring to an individual) is allocated a specific color, spatial position, weight, temperature, etc. Following Stalnaker (1981: 347), a function which maps the individuals onto a conceptual space will be called a location function. The fundamental lexical hypothesis is then the following: Predicates in
26 PETER GÄRDENFORS natural languages generally denote connected regions in some conceptual space. 7 For instance, I conjecture that all color terms in natural languages express connected regions with respect to the psychological representation of the three color dimensions. It is well-known that different languages carve up the color circle in different ways, but all carving seems to be done in terms of connected sets. Technically, as a second element of the interpretation mapping, the basic predicates of the language are assigned regions in the conceptual space. 8 Such a predicate is satisfied by an individual only when the location function locates the individual at one of the points included in the region assigned to a predicate. 9 Some of the so-called intensional predicates, like “tall,” “former” or “alleged,” are not basic, but “secondary” in the sense that their regions cannot be described independently of other predicates. There is no class of all “tall” objects. Rather, “tall” requires a contrast class, like “tall woman” or “a tall tower” in order to be well defined. In Gärdenfors 1997, I provide an analysis in terms of conceptual spaces of the role of contrast classes in determining the reference of certain such secondary predicates. If we assume that an individual is completely determined by his/her/its set of properties, then all points in the conceptual space can be taken to represent possible individuals. On this account, a possible individual is a cognitive notion that need not have any form of reference in the external world. This construction will avoid many of the problems that have plagued other accounts of possible individuals. A point in a conceptual space will always have an internally consistent set of properties — since e.g., “blue” and “yellow” are disjoint predicates in the color space, it is not possible that any individual will be both blue and yellow (all over). There is no need for meaning postulates in order to exclude such contradictory predicates. One important contrast to the traditional intensional semantics is that the cognitive semantics outlined here does not presume the concept of a possible world. However, different location functions describe alternative ways that individuals may be located in a conceptual space. Consequently, these location functions can be given the same role as possible worlds in the traditional semantics. This means that we can define the notion of a possible world as a possible location function, and this can be done without introducing any new semantic primitives to the theory.
Page 2 and 3: COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
Page 4 and 5: COGNITIVE SEMANTICS MEANING AND COG
Page 6: “I KNOW, WE WON’T REVOLUTIONIZE
Page 9 and 10: viii PREFACE In this book, which re
Page 11 and 12: x PREFACE different mechanisms of s
Page 13 and 14: 2 JENS ALLWOOD (1974). A meaning po
Page 15 and 16: 4 JENS ALLWOOD types (iii), (vi) an
Page 17 and 18: 6 JENS ALLWOOD operations which can
Page 19 and 20: 8 JENS ALLWOOD the sentence John lo
Page 21 and 22: 10 JENS ALLWOOD leva i (live in) X
Page 23 and 24: 12 JENS ALLWOOD II. Semantic-episte
Page 25 and 26: 14 JENS ALLWOOD State abstract obje
Page 27 and 28: 16 JENS ALLWOOD by forming krig-are
Page 30 and 31: SOME TENETS OF COGNITIVE SEMANTICS
Page 48 and 49: 1. Introduction FUNCTION, COGNITION
Page 50 and 51: FUNCTION, COGNITION, AND LAYERED CL
Page 78 and 79: FROM VISION TO COGNITION 67 From Vi
Page 80 and 81: knowledge, and non-understanding, e
Page 82 and 83: Table 2. Visual perception FROM VIS
Page 84 and 85: 6. Results of the lexical survey FR
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FROM VISION TO COGNITION 75 genomse
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kunskaper ‘knowledge’ vetande
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FROM VISION TO COGNITION 79 trångs
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7. Being opaque → being abstruse,
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FROM VISION TO COGNITION 83 3. Caus
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FROM VISION TO COGNITION 85 Table 3
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88 ÅKE VIBERG dynamic (aspectual,
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90 ÅKE VIBERG The organization of
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92 ÅKE VIBERG The hierarchical str
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94 ÅKE VIBERG Intentional level. I
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96 ÅKE VIBERG but there is also a
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98 ÅKE VIBERG corresponds to an En
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100 ÅKE VIBERG III. Focusing of va
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102 ÅKE VIBERG Another extended se
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104 ÅKE VIBERG Och sen en stark r
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106 ÅKE VIBERG Man slås ju av att
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108 ÅKE VIBERG The second use of s
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110 ÅKE VIBERG “Kaffe”, säger
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112 ÅKE VIBERG The disconnection (
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114 ÅKE VIBERG ‘at poker’ Per
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116 ÅKE VIBERG Han slog ihop matse
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118 ÅKE VIBERG Table 10. The lexic
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120 ÅKE VIBERG Våld våld våld.
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122 ÅKE VIBERG Table 12. Major cla
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124 ÅKE VIBERG Table 13. The lexic
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126 ÅKE VIBERG Han rev loss en sid
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128 ÅKE VIBERG References Aijmer,
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SPACE AND TIME 131 Space and Time E
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SPACE AND TIME 133 visual perceptio
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SPACE AND TIME 135 This strategy is
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SPACE AND TIME 137 mal] with the va
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SPACE AND TIME 139 The articulatory
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SPACE AND TIME 141 in relation to a
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SPACE AND TIME 143 moment represent
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SPACE AND TIME 145 tion through the
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SPACE AND TIME 147 temporal sense (
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Notes SPACE AND TIME 149 1. In talk
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SPACE AND TIME 151 Johnson, M. 1987
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1. Introduction CONCEPTUAL ENGINEER
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CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING 155 II. a li
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CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING 157 The exam
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CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING 159 The firs
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CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING 161 But when
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CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING 163 Figure 8
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CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING 165 Let us f
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CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING 167 can be f
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Suggesting Figure 13. Params Evalua
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References CONCEPTUAL ENGINEERING 1
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174 JORDAN ZLATEV which need to be
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176 JORDAN ZLATEV learner’s behav
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178 JORDAN ZLATEV Figure 1. Regier
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180 JORDAN ZLATEV Figure 2. A train
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182 JORDAN ZLATEV Notice that, acco
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184 JORDAN ZLATEV However, the vers
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186 JORDAN ZLATEV often referred to
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188 JORDAN ZLATEV respond by giving
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190 JORDAN ZLATEV The experiments w
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192 JORDAN ZLATEV 2. Thus the pictu
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194 JORDAN ZLATEV Small, S., Cottre
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196 INDEX OF NAMES Husserl, E. 4 J
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A abstract 132 Abstract agent 11 ab
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possible worlds 19, 21, 26, 31 post
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22. AUER, Peter and Aldo Di LUZIO (
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69. NOH, Eun-Ju: The Semantics and
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