Are word meanings corresponding to different grammatical categories organised differently within lexical semantic memory?

2006 ◽  
Vol 1 (2) ◽  
pp. 251-275
Author(s):  
Joanne Arciuli ◽  
Linda Cupples ◽  
Gabriella Vigliocco
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Unrelated Word ◽  
Related Word ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Category Word ◽  
Memory Experiment

We report on two experiments that examined lexical semantic memory. Experiment 1 included semantically related word-pairs (similarity of meaning) and unrelated word-pairs from three grammatical categories (nouns, verbs, adjectives). Experiment 2 included semantically related word-pairs (contrasting meaning) and unrelated word-pairs from the same three categories. Results of both experiments showed similar levels of semantic priming across same versus different grammatical category word-pairs (e.g., verb–verb pairs vs. verb–adjective pairs). Additional analyses of each experiment showed similar levels of priming within each of the three grammatical categories (i.e., noun–noun vs. verb–verb vs. adjective–adjective pairs). These findings suggest that there are no sharp architectural distinctions amongst words from different grammatical categories within lexical semantic memory.

scholarly journals Lexical-semantic and executive deficits revealed by computational modelling: a drift diffusion model perspective

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lara Todorova ◽  
David Neville ◽  
Vitória Piai
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Diffusion Model ◽  
Drift Rate ◽  
Related Word ◽  
Model Parameters ◽  
Decision Threshold ◽  
Drift Diffusion Model ◽  
Drift Diffusion ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Two Systems

Flexible language use requires coordinated functioning of two systems: conceptual representations and control. The interaction between two systems can be observed when people are asked to match a word to a picture. Participants are slower and less accurate for related word-picture pairs (word: banana, picture: apple) relative to unrelated pairs (word: banjo, picture: apple). The mechanism underlying interference however is still unclear. We analyzed word-picture verification (WPM) performance of patients with stroke-induced lesions to the left-temporal (N = 5) or left-frontal cortex (N = 5) and matched controls (N = 12) using the drift diffusion model (DDM). In DDM the process of making a decision is described as the stochastic accumulation of evidence towards a response. The parameters of the DDM model that characterize this process are decision threshold, drift rate, starting point and non-decision time. Each of them bears cognitive interpretability and we compared the estimated model parameters from controls and patients to investigate the mechanisms of WPM interference. WPM performance in controls was explained by the amount of information needed to make a decision (decision threshold): a higher threshold was associated with related word-picture pairs relative to unrelated ones. No difference was found in the quality of the evidence (drift rate). This suggests an executive rather than semantic mechanism underlying WPM interference. Both patients with temporal and frontal lesions exhibited both increased drift rate and decision threshold for unrelated pairs relative to related ones. Left-frontal and temporal damage affected the computations required by WPM similarly, resulting in systematic deficits across lexical-semantic memory and executive functions. These results support a diverse but interactive role of lexical-semantic memory and semantic control mechanisms.

scholarly journals Insights into Lexico-Semantic Fields of Romanian Editorial-Polygraphic Terms

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
pp. 51-58
Author(s):  
Svetlana Calaraş ◽  
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Field ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Dynamic Nature ◽  
Semantic Relationships ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Semantic Fields ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Lexical Field ◽  
Structural Semantics ◽  
Constituent Elements

Due to the dynamic nature of the vocabulary, we can argue that any lexico-semantic field can be unlimited, has no rigid boundaries, which leads to difficulties in establishing semantic relationships between the constituent units of a semantic field, and the second problem arising from this phenomenon would be the establishment of the inventory of a semantic field. Thus, the system that is the objective of our research consists of the units of "inventory" (terms) and the relationships between its constituent elements, and the fluctuation of the boundaries of a semantic field that leads to difficulties in the limiting it and in the rigorous composition of the inventory semantically. Not all words in the vocabulary can be grouped into lexico-semantic fields, only those that are organized and stable. A semantic field also corresponds to a certain grammatical category - gender, number, time, aspect, mode, etc., and the oppositions between the members of a lexical-semantic field correspond to the oppositions of their grammatical categories. Therefore, in order to practically approach the structuring of a lexico-semantic field, a theoretical and methodological incursion in structural semantics is absolutely necessary. We consider that the reflections regarding the concept of lexical field are absolutely fundamental in order to be able to try to structure such linguistic fields in a certain field, in our case - in the editorial-polygraphic field.

scholarly journals Lexical semantic memory in amnestic mild cognitive impairment and mild Alzheimer's disease

2007 ◽  
Vol 65 (3a) ◽  
pp. 619-622 ◽  
Author(s):  
Marcio L.F. Balthazar ◽  
José E. Martinelli ◽  
Fernando Cendes ◽  
Benito P. Damasceno
Keyword(s):  
Alzheimer’S Disease ◽  
Alzheimer's Disease ◽  
Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Verbal Learning ◽  
Amnestic Mild Cognitive Impairment ◽  
Memory Tests ◽  
Lexical Semantic

OBJECTIVE: To study lexical semantic memory in patients with amnestic mild cognitive impairment (aMCI), mild Alzheimer's disease (AD) and normal controls. METHOD: Fifteen mild AD, 15 aMCI, and 15 normal control subjects were included. Diagnosis of AD was based on DSM-IV and NINCDS-ADRDA criteria, and that of aMCI, on the criteria of the International Working Group on Mild Cognitive Impairment, using CDR 0.5 for aMCI and CDR 1 for mild AD. All subjects underwent semantic memory tests (Boston Naming-BNT, CAMCOG Similarities item), Rey Auditory Verbal Learning Test (RAVLT), Mini-Mental Status Examination (MMSE), neuropsychological tests (counterproofs), and Cornell Scale for Depression in Dementia. Data analysis used Mann-Whitney test for intergroup comparisons and Pearson's coefficient for correlations between memory tests and counterproofs (statistical significance level was p<0.05). RESULTS: aMCI patients were similar to controls on BNT and Similarities, but worse on MMSE and RAVLT. Mild AD patients scored significantly worse than aMCI and controls on all tests. CONCLUSION: aMCI impairs episodic memory but tends to spare lexical semantic system, which can be affected in the early phase of AD.

scholarly journals Unsupervised Neural Aspect Extraction with Sememes

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ling Luo ◽  
Xiang Ao ◽  
Yan Song ◽  
Jinyao Li ◽  
Xiaopeng Yang ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Real World ◽  
Latent Variables ◽  
Lexical Semantics ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Aspect Extraction ◽  
Real World Datasets ◽  
Semantic Resources

Aspect extraction relies on identifying aspects by discovering coherence among words, which is challenging when word meanings are diversified and processing on short texts. To enhance the performance on aspect extraction, leveraging lexical semantic resources is a possible solution to such challenge. In this paper, we present an unsupervised neural framework that leverages sememes to enhance lexical semantics. The overall framework is analogous to an autoenoder which reconstructs sentence representations and learns aspects by latent variables. Two models that form sentence representations are proposed by exploiting sememes via (1) a hierarchical attention; (2) a context-enhanced attention. Experiments on two real-world datasets demonstrate the validity and the effectiveness of our models, which significantly outperforms existing baselines.

scholarly journals Reflections on habituality across other grammatical categories

2019 ◽  
Vol 72 (1) ◽  
pp. 1-20
Author(s):  
Nora Boneh ◽  
Łukasz Jędrzejowski
Keyword(s):  
The Other ◽  
Special Issue ◽  
Grammatical Category ◽  
Imperfective Aspect ◽  
General Overview ◽  
Grammatical Categories ◽  
Other Hand ◽  
The Future ◽  
The One

Abstract The main aim of this introduction article is to give a general overview of how habituality has been investigated in the literature as a grammatical category. In doing so, we first elaborate on the question of how habituality can be characterized and what difficulties one encounters in determining its properties, which include non-contingent modal event recurrence. A brief discussion of these issues is given in Section 2. Section 3 outlines selected (conceptual and formal) connections between habituality and other grammatical categories. What our observations essentially indicate is that habituality, on the one hand, closely interacts with several TAM categories, most prominently imperfective aspect and its derivatives (progressive, continuative), and also interacts in special ways with modal categories, such as the evidential or the future, on the other hand, we also observe – as has been done previously – that habituality is often not encoded overtly and can be expressed by several forms within one and the same language, and if overtly marked by a dedicated form, diachronically, it is not always stable. Finally, Section 4 summarizes the most relevant findings of the articles collected in the present special issue and highlights their importance for the general discussion about habituality.

scholarly journals Context-dependent Semantic Processing in the Human Brain: Evidence from Idiom Comprehension

2013 ◽  
Vol 25 (5) ◽  
pp. 762-776 ◽  
Author(s):  
Joost Rommers ◽  
Ton Dijkstra ◽  
Marcel Bastiaansen
Keyword(s):  
Language Comprehension ◽  
Semantic Processing ◽  
Word Meaning ◽  
Unrelated Word ◽  
Word Meanings ◽  
Idiom Comprehension ◽  
Late Positivity ◽  
Gamma Frequency ◽  
Band Power ◽  
Power Increase

Language comprehension involves activating word meanings and integrating them with the sentence context. This study examined whether these routines are carried out even when they are theoretically unnecessary, namely, in the case of opaque idiomatic expressions, for which the literal word meanings are unrelated to the overall meaning of the expression. Predictable words in sentences were replaced by a semantically related or unrelated word. In literal sentences, this yielded previously established behavioral and electrophysiological signatures of semantic processing: semantic facilitation in lexical decision, a reduced N400 for semantically related relative to unrelated words, and a power increase in the gamma frequency band that was disrupted by semantic violations. However, the same manipulations in idioms yielded none of these effects. Instead, semantic violations elicited a late positivity in idioms. Moreover, gamma band power was lower in correct idioms than in correct literal sentences. It is argued that the brain's semantic expectancy and literal word meaning integration operations can, to some extent, be “switched off” when the context renders them unnecessary. Furthermore, the results lend support to models of idiom comprehension that involve unitary idiom representations.

Lexical semantic memory and confrontation naming in aphasic patients

Aphasiology ◽  
1989 ◽  
Vol 3 (4) ◽  
pp. 249-265
Author(s):  
Kazuyoshi Fukuzawa ◽  
Itaru Tatsumi ◽  
Sumiko Sasanuma ◽  
Yoko Fukusako ◽  
Motonobu Itoh
Keyword(s):  
Semantic Memory ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Confrontation Naming

Brain responses to lexical-semantic priming in children at-risk for dyslexia

2007 ◽  
Vol 102 (3) ◽  
pp. 243-261 ◽  
Author(s):  
J TORKILDSEN ◽  
G SYVERSEN ◽  
H SIMONSEN ◽  
I MOEN ◽  
M LINDGREN
Keyword(s):  
At Risk ◽  
Semantic Priming ◽  
Children At Risk ◽  
Lexical Semantic ◽  
Brain Responses
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