We investigate the learning of contextual meaning by adults in an artificial language. Contextual meaning here refers to the non-denotative contextual information that speakers attach to a linguistic construction. Through a series of short games, played online, we test how well adults can learn different contextual meanings for a word-formation pattern in an artificial language. We look at whet...

This paper presents a geometric approach to meaning representation within the framework of continuous mathematics. Meaning representation is a central issue in Natural Language Processing, in particular for tasks like word sense disambiguation or information extraction. We want here to discuss the relevance of using continuous models in semantics. We don’t want to argue the continuous or discre...

Four experiments explored whether 2 uniquely human characteristics-counterfactual thinking (imagining alternatives to the past) and the fundamental drive to create meaning in life-are causally related. Rather than implying a random quality to life, the authors hypothesized and found that counterfactual thinking heightens the meaningfulness of key life experiences. Reflecting on alternative path...

This Essay explores the largely overlooked relationship between claim construction and patent assertion entities (patent “trolls”) finding that claim construction problems and trends benefit patent assertion entities. First, the Federal Circuit is deeply divided as to the proper approach to claim construction. This split is a significant contributor to uncertain patent scope, which is widely-re...

The study of emotions has been one of the most important areas of research in the Social Sciences. Social Psychology has also contributed to the development of this area. In this article we analyse the contribution of social Psychology to the study of emotion, understood as a social construct, and its strong relationship with language. Specifically, we open a discussion on the basis of the gene...

In traditional analysis, the constructions of Chinese V-V compounds are generally categorized, according to the grammatical relation between the component V’s, into three major types: coordination (並列式), modifier-head (偏正式) and verb-complement (述補式). Though the widely accepted categorization criteria seem to be simple and straightforward, linguists could often come to completely different judgm...

The study of emotion has been one of the most important areas of research in the Social Sciences. Social psychology has also contributed to the development of this area. In this article we analyze the contribution of social psychology to the study of emotion, understood as a social construct, and its strong relationship with language. Specifically, we open a discussion on the basis of the gener...

the implication of transposition in the structure of positive and negative sentences has been studied from the point of abd al-qāhir al-jurjānī's view in present essay. transposition is a rhetorical subject being discussed in generative-transformative grammar. jurjānī believed that words set in order in a sentence on the basis of their meanings, and emphasized that if the order of words in...

There is a certain consensus on some defining features of collocations (they are frequent, recurrent, conventional, institutionalized, etc.), but there is not much agreement on other characteristics, for example whether or not they constitute binary lexical relations, and, crucially, whether they are arbitrary, and must be stipulated, or should instead be deduced or inferred. I will argue that ...

This article presents the results we obtained on a complex annotation task (that of dependency syntax) using a specifically designed Game with a Purpose, ZombiLingo.1 We show that with suitable mechanisms (decomposition of the task, training of the players and regular control of the annotation quality during the game), it is possible to obtain annotations whose quality is significantly higher t...