Coordinating taxonomical and observational meaning: The case of genus-differentia definitions

• Genus-differentia definitions exhibit the dual nature of lexical semantic meaning—they incorporate both “hard” X is a Y relations between words, as well as “soft” aspects of meaning which can be supported or challenged by observation. Modeling such definitions as contributions in dialogue requires that we accommodate the fluidity of linguistic resources, while respecting the dual nature of the relations that hold between lexical items. In this paper, we use a Probabilistic Type Theory with Records (ProbTTR) to characterise genus-differentia definitions by describing the update they license to the common ground of a dialogue.

Subject headings

HUMANIORA  -- Språk och litteratur -- Jämförande språkvetenskap och allmän lingvistik (hsv//swe)

HUMANITIES  -- Languages and Literature -- General Language Studies and Linguistics (hsv//eng)

Keyword

lexical semantics

Publication and Content Type

ref (subject category)

kon (subject category)