Lexical variation in aggregate perspective

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112 Tom Ruette, Dirk Speelman, and Dirk Geeraerts we can reach near-synonymy by slightly relaxing the level of detail of the conceptual category: not every language user has an identitical representation of a word in his head, but nonetheless two language users can communicate with that word. Idealized Cognitive Models (Lakoff 1987) or Frames (Fillmore 1994) are examples of describing meaning, while balancing semasiological detail and operational functionality. In future research, we will operationalize the bottom-up creation of conceptual categories by applying Word Space Models (Turney and Pantel 2010). Third, an onomasiological approach requires prior semasiological analysis to exclude contextual nuances or polysemy. In the case-study of this paper, the lemmatized forms of the RBBN words were naively counted in the corpus, without further checking the context of each occurrence. Closer inspection revealed that the RBBN list does not contain many potential polysemous items, so that we can ignore the small error that must be present in the frequencies for the purposes of the current paper. However, as we want to perform the above analyses in future research with a naturalistic sample of lexical variation, instead of an a priori list of national variation, a semasiological study for every occurrence needs to be done in order to establish the conceptual control. As this would be an unfeasible manual task when using a large amount of variables, we will rely further on the advances being made in the field of Word Space Models to automate this task. To conclude this paper, we try to answer our initial questions. How important is the notion of a conceptual category in an aggregate study of the lexicon? The casestudy has shown that conceptual control is necessary to reveal variational dimensions that are hidden in the overwhelming content (topic) function of words. Without conceptual control, the conclusion of the categorization approach would have been that different words are used to refer to different content, and that they may also signal register and perhaps national differences. This observation, albeit true and undeniable, is not the goal of an aggregation study: it is obvious that an aggregation of many words will be sensitive to content differences among subcorpora. Therefore, conceptual control, in the form of conceptual categories that group together similar words, is needed. And this brings us to the second question: what is the status of conceptual categories for lexical variation? Although practical as a methodological and heuristic device, the conceptual categories remain somewhat artificial because of the flexibility in their definition. In the current case study, the makers of the RBBN clearly had referential equivalence in mind for most categories. However, conceptual categories can be defined more strictly or less strictly at a whim of the researcher, because there is no consensus over the appropriate level of detail in the definition, especially since the incorporation of encyclopedic knowledge in word-meaning. The level of detail that is operational in the language community can only be retrieved by studying the actual use of words. And then we are back at variation.
Appendix Lexical variation in aggregate perspective 113 Tab. 4: Snippet of the input data for both aggregation methods. Pairs of rows make up lexical variables. qnp.be.e.0 qnp.be.e.1 qnp.be.p.0 qnp.be.p.1 qnp.nl.e.0 qnp.nl.e.1 qnp.nl.p.0 leefbaar 9 3 8 11 1 0 0 0 0 1 9 4 0 0 24 18 levensvatbaar 2 4 2 0 2 1 3 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 4 4 hangar 0 1 0 1 0 0 1 2 0 0 1 1 0 0 1 1 loods 8 6 4 18 4 11 5 2 0 0 0 2 0 1 1 6 schoon 7 10 10 12 29 21 13 11 0 2 7 3 2 4 66 85 mooi 153 122 114 110 110 76 53 42 42 33 73 67 52 74 449 475 dagorde 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 agenda 29 26 100 90 29 21 39 24 2 1 14 14 1 1 17 33 knook 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 been 13 15 43 41 39 29 14 20 10 12 14 12 21 18 76 65 zever 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 0 6 2 15 15 0 0 4 14 onzin 7 1 23 30 8 5 5 3 5 10 44 61 26 43 451 485 draad 4 6 14 10 6 13 2 3 1 2 31 32 9 10 90 87 snoer 2 0 2 1 1 5 1 1 0 0 3 1 0 0 21 28 weeral 0 0 2 0 0 0 0 0 9 3 9 9 0 1 4 1 alweer 19 22 32 22 21 30 11 17 5 1 21 22 12 9 98 98 fel 27 23 33 35 17 19 31 42 6 1 5 10 0 1 19 31 erg 331 268 208 217 117 112 76 68 21 36 143 131 99 94 830 835 strop 4 2 1 3 26 18 4 3 0 0 1 0 0 0 3 3 strik 1 2 2 3 5 6 1 0 0 0 2 0 0 2 1 2 verdiep 2 1 4 3 8 2 4 11 0 0 2 3 3 4 20 26 verdieping 0 6 6 7 5 4 10 11 0 0 1 0 0 0 12 10 stamp 6 2 9 5 5 1 0 2 1 0 5 5 0 0 11 10 duw 27 16 42 34 20 25 13 16 1 1 13 8 0 5 27 28 spaarzaam 0 1 0 1 2 2 1 2 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 zuinig 3 10 5 12 18 21 4 1 0 0 2 3 0 0 10 13 hospitaal 0 4 4 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 2 ziekenhuis 26 34 82 60 11 40 11 11 0 1 15 15 0 2 61 92 micro 1 1 2 3 0 0 0 0 0 1 0 0 1 1 2 1 microfoon 1 1 2 10 2 3 3 7 0 0 0 0 0 0 34 28 buis 7 2 2 1 4 1 6 3 0 0 2 1 0 0 18 12 onvoldoende 57 56 38 60 36 29 18 28 4 4 2 7 3 8 23 23 toelage 3 2 3 2 2 5 0 1 0 0 5 0 0 0 1 1 subsidie 33 41 13 15 35 22 29 49 1 0 14 15 2 4 122 137 woonst 1 2 3 3 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 0 0 0 0 woning 47 60 45 54 47 70 2 21 17 15 8 9 23 17 54 91 uitbater 13 11 3 8 1 1 2 4 0 0 3 2 0 0 6 4 exploitant 2 2 2 2 15 13 3 5 0 0 0 0 0 0 1 1 tussenkomst 19 8 17 13 3 3 0 1 1 2 0 1 2 2 0 6 bijdrage 40 64 23 23 37 25 34 30 3 9 6 16 14 26 90 80 tegenstrever 1 1 6 8 2 1 0 1 0 0 0 1 0 0 0 0 tegenstander 24 19 70 77 16 17 38 32 0 0 18 16 5 5 63 64 aanvang 5 5 3 3 7 8 2 2 0 0 1 3 1 2 3 4 begin 635 550 499 507 637 554 322 341 78 71 139 201 100 102 706 712 qnp.nl.p.1 use.be.e.0 use.be.e.1 use.be.p.0 use.be.p.1 use.nl.e.0 use.nl.e.1 use.nl.p.0 use.nl.p.1
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