Concepts Frames And Cascades In Semantics Cognition And Ontology

This open access book presents novel theoretical, empirical and experimental work exploring the nature of mental representations that support natural language production and understanding, and other manifestations of cognition. One fundamental question raised in the text is whether requisite knowledge structures can be adequately modeled by means of a uniform representational format, and if so, what exactly is its nature. Frames are a key topic covered which have had a strong impact on the exploration of knowledge representations in artificial intelligence, psychology and linguistics; cascades are a novel development in frame theory. Other key subject areas explored are: concepts and categorization, the experimental investigation of mental representation, as well as cognitive analysis in semantics. This book is of interest to students, researchers, and professionals working on cognition in the fields of linguistics, philosophy, and psychology.

This volume showcases the potential richness of frame representations. The presentation includes introductory articles on the application of frames to linguistics and philosophy of science, offering readers the tools to conduct the interdisciplinary investigation of concepts that frames allow. * Introductory articles on the application of frames to linguistics and philosophy of science * Frame analysis of changes in scientific concepts * Event frames and lexical decomposition * Properties, frame attributes and adjectives * Frames in concept composition * Nominal concept types and determination​ "This volume deals with frame representations and their relations to concept types in linguistics and philosophy of science. It aims at reviving concepts and frames as a common model across disciplines for representing semantic and conceptual knowledge. Departing from the general assumption that frames are not just an arbitrary format of representation but essential to human cognition, a number of case studies apply frames as an analytical tool to a wide range of phenomena, from changes in scientific concepts to particular linguistic phenomena. This provides new insights into long-standing semantic issues, such as the lexical representation of verbs (as predicative frames specifying particular event descriptions or situation types and their participants), adjectives and nominals (as concept frames, which provide attributes and properties of an entity), as well as modification, complementation, possessive constructions, compounding, nominal concept types, determination, or definiteness marking." Bert Gehrke, Pompeu, Fabra University, Barcelona, Spain

This book explores the cognitive constraints and principles of variation in structures of linguistic meaning across languages. It unifies cognitive-semantic representations with formal-semantic representations to make a unique contribution to the study of typological generalizations and universals in natural language semantics. This unified approach not only helps reveal why semantic structures have the observed variation they have but also sheds light on the compelling cognitive and formal regularities and patterns in the variation of linguistic semantics. The book also advances the general principles of a cognitively oriented semantic typology. Lucid and topical, the book will be an indispensable resource for students and researchers of language typology, linguistics, cognitive linguistics and semantics. It will also be of interest to theoretical linguists of both cognitivist and formalist schools.

This series Dissertations in Language and Cognition explores issues of mental representation, linguistic structure and representation, and their interplay. The research presented in this series is grounded in the idea explored in the Collaborative Research Center The structure of representations in language, cognition and science (SFB 991) that there is a universal format for the representation of linguistic and cognitive concepts.

This volume brings together recent scholarship addressing a number of significant issues in linguistic theory and description, including verb classification, case marking, comparative constructions, noun phrase structure, clause linkage and reference-tracking in discourse. These topics are discussed with respect to a wide range of languages, including Bamunka (Bantu), Biblical Hebrew, Japanese, Persian, Pitjantjatjara (Australia), Russian and Taiwan Sign Language. The theoretical perspective employed in these analyses is that of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), a theory which strives to describe language structure and grammatical phenomena in terms of the interaction of syntax, semantics and discourse-pragmatics. RRG differs from other parallel-architecture, constructionally-oriented theories in important ways, particularly with respect to the ability to formulate cross-linguistic generalizations. The ability of RRG to facilitate the formulation of cross-linguistic generalizations is exemplified well in the contributions to this volume. As such, this text makes important theoretical and descriptive contributions to contemporary linguistic discussions.

Toward the end of the 20th century, there is both a dissatisfaction with existing formal semantic theories and a wish to preserve insights from other semantic traditions. Cognitive semantics, the latest of the major trends which have dominated the century, attempts to do this by focusing on meaning as a cognitive phenomenon. This book provides different perspectives on meaning as a cognitive phenomenon. Jens Allwood presents an approach where meaning is analyzed in terms of context sensitive cognitive operations. Peter Gärdenfors examines the relationship between cognitive semantics and standard formal extensional and intensional semantics. Peter Harder discusses the relation between functionalism and cognitive semantics. Sören Sjöström and +ke Viberg extend a cognitive semantic approach to new empirical domains like vision and physical contact. Elisabeth Engberg Pedersen extends the use of cognitive semantics even further in order to analyze deaf sign language and, finally, Kenneth Holmqvist and Jordan Zlatev discuss two different possibilities of implementing a cognitive semantic approach using computer programs. The variety of perspectives on cognitive semantics make this book suitable as course material.

This handbook provides innovative and comprehensive coverage of research on the second language acquisition (SLA) of morphosyntax, semantics, and the interface between the two. Organized by grammatical topic, the chapters are written by experts from formal and functional perspectives in the SLA of morphosyntax and semantics, providing in-depth yet accessible coverage of these areas. All chapters highlight the theoretical underpinnings of much work in SLA and their links to theoretical syntax and semantics; making comparisons to other populations, including child language acquirers, bilinguals, and heritage speakers (links to first language acquisition and bilingualism); dedicating a portion of each chapter to the research methods used to investigate the linguistic phenomenon in question (links to psycholinguistics and experimental linguistics); and, where relevant, including intervention studies on the phenomenon in question (links to applied linguistics). The volume will be indispensable to SLA researchers and students who work on any aspect of the SLA of morphosyntax or semantics. With its coverage of a variety of methodologies and comparisons to other populations (such as child language acquirers, early bilinguals, heritage speakers, and monolingual adults), the handbook is expected to also be of much interest to linguists who work in psycholinguistics, first language acquisition, and bilingualism.