0 Introduction

9/16/2005Workshop on ‘Word Meaning, Concepts and

Communication’ 1

Lexical Pragmatics Meets Embodied Cognition: Two Case StudiesReinhard Blutnerdepartment of philosophy UvA2005

Workshop on ‘Word Meaning, Concepts and Communication’

0 Introduction

Three reasons why lexical pragmatics should be based on an embodied view of cognition

–neural embodiment–phenomenological embodiment–cultural embodiment


Communication’ 3

The Phenomenon Lexical Narrowing

– all doctors drink– please smoke inside

Approximation – this laptop cost 1000 dollars– this man runs round the block (barrier, corner) *

Metaphorical Extension– I see the tree– I see what you’re getting at – I smell what you’re getting at **

* Zwarts 2003** Sweetser 1990


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Embodied Cognition

Heidegger Merleau-Ponty

•Cambrian Intelligence by Rodney Brooks (1999) •Philosophy in the Flesh by George Lakoff and Mark Johnson (1999)•Where the Action Is by Paul Dourish (2001)


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Embodied Cognition Manifesto

Reductionst aspect: The system must be realised in a coherent, integral physical/biological structure.

Grounding aspect: – Basic concepts and words derive their meaning from

embodied experience.– Abstract and theoretical concepts derive their meaning

from metaphorical maps to more basic embodied concepts.

Evolutionary aspect: The explanation of the behaviour must include reference to cultural evolution. – This derives from the observation that intelligence lies less

in he individual brain and more in the dynamic interaction of brains with the wider world including especially the social and cultural worlds


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Why Embodied Lexical Pragmatics?

Neural embodiment– deriving restrictions for narrowing and

approximation– motivating higher order laws by laws on a lower level

Phenomenological embodiment – the importance of metaphorical maps for grounding

abstract concepts– Metaphorical extension

Cultural embodiment– complete reduction to the neural level is not possible– the explanation of individual competence must

include reference to cultural evolution


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Optimality Theory as a Framework

OT as a methodological instrument that helps to explicate theoretical ideas - also in the area of pragmatics

There are embodied versions of OT that aim to overcome the gap between low-level theories of the brain and high-level theories of the mind – Smolensky’s integrated connectionist/symbolic

cognitive architecture: The harmonic mind The unifying character of OT

– overcoming the competence-performance gap– powerful learning theory– suggest powerful mechanisms of cultural

evolution


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Outline

1. Pragmatics in OT2. Pragmatics of adjectives and the

phenomenon of blending3. The interplay between broadening

and narrowing4. Iconicity and the need for cultural

embodiment5. Conclusions


1 Pragmatics in OT

Radical pragmatics Optimality theory Bidirectional OT and

conversational implicatures Strong and weak bidirection


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Radical Pragmatics

Division of labor between semantics and pragmatics – Discriminating meaning and interpretation– The idea of underspecification (e.g. Carston 2002)

Gricean mechanism of interpretation– Neo-Gricean account (Atlas & Levinson 1981, Horn

1985, ...)– Relevance Theory (Sperber & Wilson 1986, Carston

1998, ...)

Radical pragmatics is the hypothesis that many linguistic phenomena which had previously been viewed as belonging to the semantic subsystem, in fact belong to the pragmatic subsystem.

Preface to Radical Pragmatics (Peter Cole, ed., Academic Press 1981)


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Optimality Theory as a Framework

Contraint-Hierarchy:C1 >> C2 >> C3 Evaluator

Output

Input

Generator

1 2 3 4 5Candidates


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Scalar implicatures in OTInput: |John‘s children| = 3

QUALITY

STRENGTH

John has 1 child ****John has 2 children ***

John has 3 children **

John has 4 children * *John has 5 children * The example takes the perspektive of the Speaker

and suggest that the best way to express that |John‘s children| = 3 is by saying „John has 3 children“.

But what about the perspective of the Hearer (interpretation)?


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|J’C|=1 |J’C|=2 |J’C|=3 |J’C|=4| J’C|=5

John has 1 child

John has 2 children

John has 3 children

John has 4 children

John has 5 children

The existence of blocking effects in interpretation is an argument for bidirection

Blocking effects in interpretation


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Bidirectional OT Consider two directions of optimization

– Hearer-oriented: Expressive Optimization– Speaker-oriented: Interpretive Optimization

Use the same set of constraints and the same ranking for both perspectives

Hence, the evaluator evaluates pairs of representations (e.g. form-meaning pairs)

Strong bidirection: a form-meaning is called optimal iff it is both Hearer- and Speaker-optimal


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Conversational ImplicaturesI-principle (termed R

by Horn) Q-principle

Quantity 2, Relation Say no more than you must

(Horn 1984) Read as much into an utterance

as is consistent with what you know about the world

[Levinson 1983: 146f.]

Quantity 1 Say as much as you can

(Horn 1984). Do not provide a statement

that is informationally weaker than your knowledge of the world allows,

[Levinson 1987: 401]Conditional perfection, neg-

raising, bridging Seeks to select the most

harmonic interpretationInterpretive Optimization

Scalar implicatures Can be considered as a

blocking mechanismExpressive Optimization

(given Q)

(given I)

(bearing the Q-principle in mind).

unless providing a stronger statement would contravene the I-principle


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Strong and weak bidirection - example

Constraints expressing– preferences for short expressions, – preferences for

stereotypical interpretations

Strong bidirection Weak bidirection

Weak bidirection can be precisely formulated using a recursive definition (Jäger 2002)

killcause to die

direct

indirect

killcause to die

direct

indirect


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Strong and weak bidirection Strong bidirection:

F, M is strongly optimal iffa. F, M GEN, b. there is no F’, M GEN such that F’, M > F, Mc. there is no F, M’ GEN such that F, M’ > F, M

Weak bidirection (Blutner 2000, Jäger 2002):F, M is weakly optimal (= super-optimal) iffa. F, M GEN, b. there is no weakly optimal F’, M GEN such that F’, M > F, Mc. there is no weakly optimal F, M’ GEN such that F, M’ > F, M

Computational complexity of weak bidirection– Is it plausible to assume the recursive mechanism of weak

bidirection as an online mechanism?– If not, what is the status of weak bidirection?


2 The Pragmatics of Adjectives

Three types of adjectives White triangles and red apples The underspecification view Contextual enrichment and

entropy The view of neural embodiment


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Three types of adjectives intersective: sick, carnivorous, red, blond,

rectangular, French.– ∥carnivorous N∥ = ∥carnivorous ∥ ∥N∥

subsective (but non-intersective): typical, recent, good, perfect, legendary.– ∥skillful N ∥ ∥N ∥

non-subsective: potential, alleged, arguable, likely, predicted, putative, questionable, disputed.– ∥former senator ∥ ∥former ∥ ∥senator ∥– ∥former senator ∥ ⊈ ∥senator ∥


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What is a white triangle?

From P. Bosch (2002) Explaining semantic productivity. Paper presented at the Symposium on Logic and Creativity: Integrating Categorial Rules and Experience, Osnabrück.

The black triangle

The white triangle


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What is a red apple?(a) a red apple [red peel](b) a sweet apple [sweet pulp](c) a reddish grapefruit [reddish pulp](d) a white room/ a white house [inside/outside]

A red apple?A red apple?No, it’s a green No, it’s a green apple but it’s red apple but it’s red on the insideon the inside


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More examples Quine (1960) was the first who noted the

contrast between red apple (red on the outside) and pink grapefruit (pink on the inside).

In a similar vein, Lahav (1993) argues that an adjective such as brown doesn’t make a simple and fixed contribution to any composite expression in which it appears: In order for a cow to be brown most of its body’s surface should be brown, though not its udders, eyes, or internal organs. A brown crystal, on the other hand, needs to be brown both inside and outside. A brown book is brown if its cover, but not necessarily its inner pages, are mostly brown, while a newspaper is brown only if all its pages are brown. For a potato to be brown it needs to be brown only outside, ... (Lahav 1993: 76).


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The underspecification view Radical underspecification augmented with

contextual enrichment small x small(x,N) *

small terrier x [small(x,N) & terrier(x)] Analogously for red apple with place-holders

for the relevant partsred x [part(Y,x) & red(Y)]red apple x [part(Y,x) & red(Y) & apple(x)]

How to determine the proper values for N and Y, respectively?

* with small(x,N) size(x) < N


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A mechanism of contextual enrichment

The variables are specified in a way that maximizes the relevance of the corresponding question

- Small Terrier: Is a (randomly selected) terrier smaller than N?

- Red Apple: What color is part Y (of a randomly selected apple)?

Probabilistic Theory of Relevance, see Robert van Rooy (2000): Comparing Questions and Answers: A bit of Logic, a bit of Language, and some bits of Information


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Entropy of a question The semantic value of a question Q is a partition

{q1, ..., qn} of the domain Ω.

information (of a proposition) = measure of surprise

Entropy of a question Q The entropy of a question expresses our

uncertainty about the answer. Good questions have high entropies

)inf(q)prob(qE(Q)i

ii

inf(q) = -log2 prob(q)


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What is a black triangle?

What is a black triangle?

ENTROPY (=RELEVANCE)

What color is the inner part? E=1 E=0

What color is the outer part? E=0 E=1


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What is a red apple?A red apple?A red apple?What color is an apple?Q1 What color is its peel?Q2 What color is its pulp?

E(Q1) >> E(Q2) Color differences between apples are expected for the peel and not for the pulp.

Therefore, the presented apple is considered as a green apple (inside red) and not as a red apple (outside green).This can change if we update our probability distribution.


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The view of neural embodiment The constraint of entropy maximization is crucial

part of a connectionist architecture (e.g. Smolensky ). Hence, it can be seen as an embodied constraint

This constraint helps to explain the systematicity of natural language comprehension – When an agent understands the expressions brown

triangle and black square, she understands the expressions brown square and black triangle as well.

– Compositionality is not enough to explain systematicity! (Blutner, Hendriks, de Hoop, Schwartz 2004)

A disembodied cognitive architecture (e.g. Fodor & Pylyhyn 1988) fails to explain systematicity because they derive it from intersectivity in the case under discussion. But intersectivity is empirically wrong.


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Blending theory Fauconnier and Turner’s

(1995, 1996, 1998) theory of Mental Space Blending

Sweetser (1999) describes the mechanisms of linguistic compositionality involved in the English Adjective-Noun modification construction

red ball: blending the mental spaces for ball with the mental space for red in its “active zone” (the surface of the ball) Main problem: How to determine the active zone

The present theory using entropy maximization intends to solve just this problem


3 The interplay between broadening and

narrowing Jost Zwarts: round The strongest meaning

hypothesis Narrowing and broadening:

om and rond in Dutch A problem for iconicity and

the view of cultural embodiment


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Joost Zwarts: round in English

a. The postman ran round the block (in a circle)b. The burglar drove round the barrier (to the opposite side)c. The steeplechaser ran round the corner (to the other side)d. The captain sailed round the lakee. The tourist drove round the city centre


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The strongest meaning hypothesis

Dalrymple, M., M. Kanazawa, S. Mchombo & S. Peters (1994). What do reciprocals mean? Proceedings of SALT 4.

SMH: A reciprocal sentence is interpreted as expressing the logically strongest candidate truth conditions which are not contradicted by known properties of the relation expressed by the reciprocal scope when restricted to the group argument.– The girls know each other ≃ Every girl knows every other

girl.– The girls are standing on each other ≄ #Every girl is standing

on every other girl. Zwarts applies this idea to the expression round.


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The generation of candidate meanings Assume that core meaning of round corresponds to a circle

Consider properties of circular paths and their entailments This constitutes a partial ordering of the candidates of

broadening

vector space semantics– constancy: all vectors have the same length– completeness: there is a vector pointing in every direction– loop: Starting point and end point of the path are identical– inversion: at least a half circle– orthogonality: at least a quarter-circle– detour: any path that does not describe a straight line

round


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A straightforward use of OT

round the door FIT STRENGTH

completeness *

inversion *orthogonal

ity **

detour ***

Constraints– FIT: interpretations should not

conflict with the (linguistic) context– STRENGTH: stronger interpretations

are better than weaker interpretations


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Zwarts 2003: Degrees of markedness:

om < rond < rondom


Communication’ 36

Form variation in Dutch: om, rond, rondom

a. They sat round the television

b. A man put his head round the door

c. The drove round the obstacle

d. the area round the little town

Ze zaten rond (?om) de televisieEen man stak zijn hoofd om (?rond, ?rondom) de deurDe auto reed om (?rond, ?rondom) het obstakel heenhet gebied rondom (?om) het stadjeDETOUR ------------------------------------------------ CIRCLE

om … strengthening … weakening … rond/rondom


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Predicative use of om and rond Zwart’s (2005) finding using minimal pairs:

– If rond has some interpretation m then it has each stronger interpretation

– If om has some interpretation m then it has each weaker interpretation – there is some overlap between

om and rond rond

om

A puzzle:– the marked form (rond) conforms to

the stronger (= preferred) meanings– the unmarked form (om) conforms to

the weaker meanings– This conflicts with weak bidirection

and iconicity


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The puzzle Constraints expressing

– preferences for unmarked expressions (phonologically light,…)– preferences for unmarked interpretations (prototypical, relevant, strong)

The normal case The exceptional case

What is the nature of iconicity/division of pragmatic labour/week bidirection? How to derive it?

Aspect of cultural embodiment: Take an evolutionary approach

killcause

to die

direct

indirect

om

rondcircl

edetour


4 IconicityConstructional Iconicity (or Horn’s division of pragmatic labour)Unmarked forms tend to be used for unmarked situations and marked forms for marked situations (Levinson’s M-principle).

(1) ZICK ZACK

(2) MOLA MILI

(3) Argument Linking


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Zipf Human Behavior and the Principle of Least Effort.

Addison-Wesley. Cambridge 1949. Two basic and competing forces

– Speaker’s economy: Force of unification– Hearer’s economy: Force of diversification

The two opposing economies are evolutionary forces, i.e. they are balanced during language evolution.– Languages are evolving via cultural rather than biological

transmission on a historical rather than genetic timescale What is the underlying mechanism of cultural

evolution?


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Two approaches to cultural development

Iterated Learning (Keller, Kirby, Hurford, Brighton, Tomasello, Jäger …)– After members of one generation learn a language, their

production becomes the input to learning in the next generation. Certain linguistic structure will survive transmission, while other forms may disappear.

Evolutionary language games and memic selection (Lewis [signalling games], Steels, Edelman, van Rooy, …)– The idea of memic selection is an instance of the “universal

Darwinist” claim (Dawkins 1983, Dennett 1995) that the methodology of evolutionary theory is applicable whenever any dynamical system exhibits (random) variation, selection amongs variants, and thus differential inheritance.

Frequencies are essential in both approaches– Zipf (1936) formulated a law of abbreviation: “The length of a

word tends to bear an inverse relationship to its relative frequency”.


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Memic selection: basic ideas Memes correspond to the different rankings >> of a

given system of constraints in an OT system. Each agent X (with his memes) determines

– a speaker’s strategy SX : Contents => Forms – a hearer’s strategy HX : Forms =>Contents

In pairwise interactions between an agent a (in the role of the Speaker) and an agent b (in the role of the Hearer) an utility/fitness function U is realized:U(a,b) = i P(i) [sim(Hb(Sa(i)), i) - k(Sa(i))],where sim(x,y) = similarity between x and y; P(i) probability of “content” i, k(f) cost of signal f.

The number of offspring is determined by the utility value U(a,b). Mutations change the strategies played by some elements of the population


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All possible strategies (≃ memes)

Smolensky

AntiHorn

Horn


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Population an pairwise interaction


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Results Horn and Anti-Horn are the only strategies

(OT-systems) that are evolutionary stable Starting with a uniform Smolensky population

will always result in a pure Horn population supposed P(M) > P(M’) and k(F) < k(F’)

Mixed populations develop into pure Horn populations supposed P(M) > P(M’) and k(F) < k(F’ )


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Evolutionary change 1

killcause to die

direct

indirect

killcause to die

direct

indirect

killcause to die

direct

indirect

proself

disj conjoint

proself

disj conjoint

proself

disj conjoint

AB B

A BB

Assumption: The unmarked interpretations (the prototypical ones) are more frequent then the marked ones

A: cause to die refers to indirect causation. B: kill refers to direct causation

A: self refers to the conjoint interp. B: pro refers to the disjoint interp.


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Mattausch 2004

proself

disj conj

proself

disj

conj

B proself

disj

conj

(2) (3)(1)

BA

pro

self

disj conj

A

BB*

A*

*Struct


Communication’ 48

Evolutionary change 2

om

rondcircl

edetour

om

rondcircl

edetour

Assumption: The unmarked interpretations (strength) are less frequent then the marked ones

C

C: om refers to detour

The instability of the initial situation (supposed P(detour) > P(circle)) is resolved by foregrounding the lexical bias constraint C.


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Discussion A theory of evolutionary stability can explain the

general pattern of iconicity in cases where unmarked situations (strength!) are more frequent than marked ones

A different prediction is made when the marked situations are the more frequent ones. This explains the broadening effect for rond and the narrowing effect for om.

As an evolutionary model, this approach explains how coversational implicatures become conventionalized(cf. Mattausch 2004; reconstructing Levinson’s account to the binding phenomena)

Another case of broadening: imprecise interpretations (cf. Krifka 2004)


5 Conclusions As a cognitive approach, OT pragmatics aims

to explain the phenomena under consideration.

Neuronal embodiment helps to understand certain constraints that are crucially involved in - modelling adjectival modification and - modelling broadening.

Neural embodiment is not enough. The view of cultural em-bodiment becomes important when it comes to understand- modelling the nature of iconicity- the interplay between broadening and narrowing,- the conventionalization of conversational implicatures, .

Phenomenological embodiment becomes important for metaphorical extension (not discussed here).

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