Divjak, D.S. and Arppe, A. (2013) Extracting prototypes from exemplars What can corpus data tell us about concept representation? Cognitive Linguistics, 24 (2). 221 - 274. ISSN 0936-5907
Abstract
Over the past four decades, two distinct alternatives have emerged to rule-based models of how linguistic categories are stored and represented as cognitive structures, namely the prototype and exemplar theories. Although these models were initially thought to be mutually exclusive, shifts from one mechanism to the other have been observed in category learning experiments, bringing the models closer together. In this paper we implement a technique akin to varying abstraction modelling, that assumes intermediate abstraction processes to underlie category representations and categorization decisions; we do so using familiar statistical techniques such as regression and clustering that track frequency distributions in input. With this model we simulate, on the basis of actual usage of Russian try verbs and Finnish think verbs as observed in corpora, how prototypes for near-synonymous verbs could be formed from concrete exemplars at different levels of abstraction.
In so doing, we take a closer look at the cognitive linguistic flirtation with multiple categorization theories, suggesting three improvements anchored in the fact that cognitive linguistics is a usage-based theory of language. Firstly, we show that language provides support for considering single prototype and full exemplar models as opposite ends along a continuum of abstraction. Secondly, we present a methodology that simulates how prototypes can be obtained from exemplars at more than one level of abstraction in a systematic and verifiable way. And thirdly, we illustrate our claims on the basis of work on verbs, denoting intangible events that are neither stable in nor independent of time and express relational concepts; this implies that verbs are more susceptible to their meanings being influenced by the concepts they relate.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2013 De Gruyter. Reproduced in accordance with the publisher's self-archiving policy. |
Keywords: | categorization; Finnish; exemplar model; frequency distribution; near-synonymy; polytomous logistic regression; prototype model; Russian; usage-based; varying abstraction model |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Sheffield |
Academic Units: | The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Arts and Humanities (Sheffield) > School of Languages and Cultures (Sheffield) > Russian Studies (Sheffield) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Sheffield |
Date Deposited: | 30 Oct 2015 14:10 |
Last Modified: | 23 Jun 2023 21:53 |
Published Version: | http://dx.doi.org/10.1515/cog-2013-0008 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | De Gruyter |
Refereed: | Yes |
Identification Number: | 10.1515/cog-2013-0008 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:90780 |