Transcript Taylor 5 Linguistic & Encyclopedic Knowledge

Taylor 5
Linguistic &
Encyclopedic Knowledge
Is encyclopedic knowledge
important?
• How is background knowledge incorporated
into the characterization of word meanings?
• “Autonomous linguistics assumes a clean
separation between a speaker’s world
knowledge and his purely linguistic
knowledge”. According to this view, “the
mental dictionary is is not an encyclopedia”
• BUT: Where do you draw the line?
What Cog Lx says about
encyclopedic knowledge
• Word meaning “is broadly encyclopedic in
scope. Our concept of dog is not
independent of our knowledge about dogs.”
• Background information is “a network of
shared, conventionalized, to some extent
perhaps idealized knowledge, embedded in
a pattern of cultural beliefs and practices.”
5.1 Domains & Schemas
• Meanings are not independently existing
entities.
• Meanings require context.
• “A linguistic form gets its meaning by
profiling, or highlighting a particular region
or configuration in the relevant domain.”
Examples of profiling:
• Monday -- a bounded region in the doman
of week/time
• Up/down -- an axis in the domain of vertical
space
• In/out -- a relationship in the domain of
containment
• Wing -- a region of a domain, a part-whole
structure
Basic domains:
• There are basic domains that are not
reducible to other, more primitive cognitive
structures:
– Time -Space
-Temperature
– Color -Taste
-Pitch
– Psychological states
(This might be debatable…)
More about domains:
• Many linguistic forms make reference to
multiple domains;
– Golfball makes reference to domains of shape,
color, size, material, game of golf
• Sometimes one domain is more salient than
others
– Salt -- flavor enhancement domain is often
more salient than chemical composition
5.2 Frames & Scripts
• We have a lot of terms that mean more or less the
same thing: domain, frame, script, schema, scene,
scenario, ICM, stereotype
• Frame -- Taylor will use this word to “refer to the
knowledge network linking the multiple domains
associated with a given linguistic form”
• Script -- “temporal sequencing and causal
relations which link events and states within
certain action frames”
More about frames & scripts
• There is no “clear dividing line between
linguistically relevant and linguistically
irrelevant knowledge”.
• Frames “are configurations of culturebased, conventionalized knowledge”.
5.3 Perspectivization
[Note: most cog linguists prefer the term “construal”]
• A given use of a word may highlight one or
another component of a frame
– My birthday falls on a Monday (highlights
order of days)
– I have a Monday morning feeling (highlights
weekend vs. workweek)
– My car was made on a Monday (highlights
transition from weekend to work ethic)
5.4 Frames & scripts
in language comprehension
• Encyclopedic knowledge is needed in order
to correctly interpret linguistic forms. For
example alligator shoes are
A. made from alligator skin
-NotB. worn by alligators, C. for walking on
alligators, D. worn during the alligator time,
etc.
Computing meaning
• The alligator shoes example is meant to
demonstrate that meaning and
grammaticality cannot be computed in
terms of binary features
5.5 Fake
• Is a fake gun a gun?
• Note that:
– Only human beings can create fakes
– There has to be something at stake to motivate
a deception
• Fake is uninterpretable without
encyclopedic knowledge
5.6 Real
• Mary’s husband is a real bachelor.
• Real “highlights attributes conventionally
associated with a frame, while at the same time
releasing the category from otherwise necessary
conditions for membership”
• This requires encylopedic knowledge.
[Note also that real has a function that is the opposite
of that of technically/strictly speaking]