Publications
Detailed Information
On Compositionality and Bidirectional Optimization
Cited 0 time in
Web of Science
Cited 0 time in Scopus
- Authors
- Issue Date
- 2007
- Citation
- Journal of Cognitive Science, Vol.8 No.2, pp. 137-151
- Keywords
- Bidirection ; underspecification ; weak compositionality ; contextuality principle ; concatenative compositionality ; functional compositionality ; optimality theory ; recoverability
- Abstract
- In this paper we revisit the semantic principle of compositionality and argue that compositionality is bidirectional optimization. Underspecification approaches to natural language interpretation generally start with an underspecified or weak meaning, which is strengthened by contextual information. By contrast, the bidirectional optimization approach we advocate proceeds from the strongest possible meaning. This meaning can be changed or weakened by contextual information. Under this approach, the meaning of an utterance is composed in a functional rather than a concatenative way, while contextual sources of information play a major role. Yet, because the context of any utterance is in principle the same for the speaker and the hearer, composition and decomposition procced hand in hand. Hence, bidirectional optimization ultimately guarantees (functional) compositionality.
- ISSN
- 1598-2327
- Language
- English
- Files in This Item:
- There are no files associated with this item.
Item View & Download Count
Items in S-Space are protected by copyright, with all rights reserved, unless otherwise indicated.