Tag Archives: association
29 Apr The Multiple Meanings of Polysemy
Polysemy and Constraints Perhaps the most difficult task in Natural Language (NL) understanding is the resolution of polysemy or multiple meanings. Many words in every language do not exhibit polysemy and require no disambiguation. Most words, however, can be interpreted in at least a few different ways. This makes disambiguating NL text a non-trivial task. Each different meaning and shade […]
28 Apr Mosaic of Concepts
KR Mosaic On our way to knowledge representation (KR), we’ve looked at concepts and logical propositions and words and taxonomies. I know this can all be a bit confusing, but please bear with me a little longer. Word relations are more than a two-dimensional mosaic of related concepts – they form a deep hierarchy with multiple […]
26 Apr Continuity of Learning
Production and Comprehension We know that comprehension and language production occur in different areas of the brain and occupy opposite ends of the continuum in the communicative model. The relative independence of the production and comprehension centers suggests one of three possibilities: Syntactic and lexical data are replicated in both the production and comprehension centers of […]
25 Apr Conceptual Paradigms
Conceptual Structure The different functions of language are acquired at different stages. As described by Sowa, these functions show why semantics can be considered a guide to how we learn syntax: “First, children associate words with concrete concepts used in perceiving the world and acting upon it. Next, they learn syntactic rules for mapping concepts […]
24 Apr What Was That Word?
Learning Stages From a cognitive perspective, we have reason to believe that, for most ordinary communication, words are more important to successful communication than sentences. As the complexity rises, so rises the importance of well-formed phrases and sentences. At an early age, kids begin to communicate using sounds. They progress from there to the single-word […]
23 Apr Form and Substance in Communication
Form vs. Substance If the substance is H2O, the form may be solid ice, liquid water or gaseous steam. What about language? We’ve talked about different language phenomena, including spoken, written and digitally stored language. Is the medium the form and the content the substance of language, or is there more? Saussure, a founder of the European flavor of structural […]
22 Apr Breaking Down Language Structure and Function
Grammar Acquisition Some experts suggest that a correctly formulated adult grammar is acquired by children on the basis of sentences they hear in their first few years (Pinker, 1984, p. 5). The proponents of this theory assume that a young child perceives sentence structure or is able to detect elements of grammatical structure – a […]
17 Apr Learning by Repetition
Frequency and Exposure For the very young, language learning requires mental gymnastics. Most theories of language learning refer to the fact that the frequency of repetition of a word or structure pattern determines the strength of its acquisition. In this context, there may be some threshold of frequency which, once reached, will result in the […]
16 Apr From Concept to Communication
Yorrick’s First Concepts A conceptually structured model of learning might suggest that Yorrick, or any other human, first acquires concepts, and later, a vehicle for communicating concepts: language. During Yorrick’s early development, his concepts are linked entirely to physical sensations and perceptions: hunger, soreness, the sucking instinct, and the like. One of the first discoveries […]
12 Apr Making a Pattern of Comprenshion
In A Timeless Way of Building, Christopher Alexander points out that “…no pattern is an isolated entity. Each pattern can exist in the world only to the extent that it is supported by other patterns: the larger patterns in which it is embedded, the patterns of the same size that surround it, and the smaller […]