LEXICAL INTERFACE 2 OCT 26, 2015 – DAY 25 Brain & Language LING NSCI Fall 2015

Course organization Fun with I have finished grading & will post grades this afternoon/tomorrow. LexicalInterface.html LexicalInterface.html 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 2

THE LEXICAL INTERFACE The quiz was the review. 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 3

THE LEXICAL INTERFACE 2 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 4

The lexical interface 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 5

10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 6 Do you see any difference between (a) and (b)? Which sensory modality are these most dependent on?

Areas ~ hubs ~ effects = sensorimotor semantics 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 7

Dual pathways in vision 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 8

LEXICAL SEMANTICS 1 Ingram: III. Lexical semantics, §10. 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 9

Some semantic relations synonymy words share the same meaning: violin ~ fiddle antonymy words have opposite meanings: long ~ short hypernymy one word ‘contains’ the meaning of another in a taxonomy: animal ~ horse hyponymy one word is ‘contained’ in the meaning of another in a taxonomy: horse ~ animal holonymy one word is a whole for the meaning of another: hand ~ finger meronymy one word is a part for the meaning of another: finger ~ hand metonymy a part of a concept stands for the whole concept: Hollywood ~ American movie industry 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 10

Polysemy Write down all the meanings of “play” that you can think of. 1. Activity for amusement only, especially among the young. 2. The conduct, or course of a game. 3. An individual's performance in a sport or game. 4. An action carried out when it is one's turn to play. 5. A literary composition, intended to be represented by actors impersonating the characters and speaking the dialogue. 6. A theatrical performance featuring actors. 7. A major move by a business. 8. The extent to which a part of a mechanism can move freely. 9. A geological formation that contains an accumulation or prospect of hydrocarbons or other resources. 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 11

Semantic anomalies anomaly 1. a club for married bachelors 2. a vase of whiskey 3. colorless green ideas 4. your heart’s dissent 5. freeze structure 6. bang my hammer with a finger intended expression 1. ? 2. a flask of whiskey 3. ? 4. your heart’s content 5. phrase structure 6. bang my finger with a hammer 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 12

Write down every word that you associate with this object 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 13

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Semantic networks 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 15 Ingram goes into great detail on Quillian’s Teachable Language Comprehender (TLC); I could not find an image, but this illustrates the idea just as well.

The linkages in such a network are … semantic … the relationships of meaning mentioned above, such as part-whole; these are necessary, in the sense that a hand is by definition made up of fingers. or associative … established by the fact that certain words are often used together, such as pig and farm; these are ‘accidental’, in the sense that there is nothing in the meaning of pig that requires them to be associated with farms; they are often defined in a free association test, by giving a subject the prime word and asking her to say the first word that comes mind; 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 16

Caveat I grant that the distinction between semantic and associative relationships can be difficult to pin down. Note that psychologists would call semantic networks ‘semantic memory’, while linguists would say that most of these networks contain real- world knowledge, which is different from linguistic semantics. So let us look at an experiment that tries to tease these two domains apart. 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 17

‘To prime the pump’ ‘The facilitatory effect that presentation of an item can have on the response to a subsequent item’ usually measured in terms of reaction time 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 18

Semantic + associative vs. non-associative prime-probe relations Table 10.4, Moss et al. (1995) Semantic relation Category coordination [taxonomy] Function NaturalArtifactInstrumentalScripted Associated cat – dogboat – shipbow – arrowtheater – play brother – sistercoat – hatumbrella – rainbeach – sand Non- associated aunt – nephewairplane – trainknife – breadparty – music pig – horseblouse – dressstring – parcelzoo – penguin 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 19 Increased priming with respect to control condition in which there is no relationship between prime and probe: unrelated (control) < semantic + non-associative < semantic + associative

Final project Improve a Wikipedia article about any of the topics mentioned in class or any other topic broadly related to neurolinguistics. Write a short essay explaining what you did and why you did it. Print the article before you improve it, highlighting any subtractions. Print the article after you improve it, highlighting your additions. 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 20

NEXT TIME Q6 More on the lexical interface: word semantics 10/26/15Brain & Language - Harry Howard - Tulane University 21