Of old couples and important committees : modifjcation and group - PowerPoint PPT Presentation

Of old couples and important committees : modifjcation and group member accessibility Curt Anderson SFB 991, Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf 10 September 2018 European Society for Psychology and Philosophy 26 Rijeka, Croatia SFB 991

Introduction Accessibility of members (members of the group). a disgruntled army (4) an important committee b. a large stafg (at a company) a. (3) a bunch of fmowers b. a deck of cards a. (2) committee, jury, company, club, audience, family (1) Group nouns Wrapping up Analysis Background 2 / 23 ▶ This talk is about group nouns. ▶ Denote groups of individuals that are in some relationship with each other. ▶ Attributive adjectives can target properties of both the group and the members. ▶ Conceptually, seem to denote both atoms (groups) as well as individuals

Introduction a. ??The blonde committee is standing in the corner. a bilingual family/??orchestra (7) an anxious stafg/??association (6) (members accessible) The blonde couple is standing in the corner. b. (members inaccessible) (5) Accessibility of members groups. modifjers. Modifjcation, group nouns, and accessibility of members Wrapping up Analysis Background 3 / 23 ▶ Focus of this talk: Group nouns difger in how accessible their members are to ▶ This fact has not be widely discussed or even noted in the formal literature on

Introduction Accessibility of members Background Analysis Wrapping up Goals difgerent degrees. 4 / 23 ▶ Additional empirical evidence that difgerent group term profjle their members to ▶ Provide an initial semantics for group nouns using Düsseldorf Frame Semantics. ▶ Give an explanation for this variation between difgerent groups.

Introduction Accessibility of members Background Analysis Wrapping up Roadmap and events. following Barker 1992. 5 / 23 ▶ Data regarding accessibility of members. ▶ Some background on Düsseldorf Frame Semantics and an ontology for individuals ▶ Sketch an analysis of group nouns using frames, treating groups as atomic, ▶ Provide an initial explanation for why member accessibility difgers between nouns.

Introduction Accessibility of members ‘crew’, tweeling ‘twins’, … duo ‘duo, pair’, echtpaar ‘married couple’, gezin ‘family, household’, bemanning delegatie ‘delegation’, … familie ‘family’, ploeg ‘team’, staf ‘stafg’, klas ‘class’, jury ‘jury’, panel ‘panel’, ‘organisation’, comite ‘committee’, regering ‘government’, orkest ‘orchestra’, … ereniging ‘association’, maatschappij ‘company’, club ‘club’, organisatie 6 / 23 members to difgerent degrees. Joosten et al. (2007) Wrapping up Analysis Background ▶ Joosten et al. (2007): difgerent group nouns in Dutch conceptually profjle their ▶ Corpus and experimental work showing this. ▶ Type 1: Low member accessibility ▶ Type 2: Medium member accessibility ▶ Type 3: High member accessibility

Introduction (8) the group. 995 pairs of adjective and noun. association, tribe delegation, committee, organization, union, government, fjrm, company, choir, jury, crew, team, class, party, army, panel, orchestra, club, Accessibility of members couple, public, family, stafg, trio, pair, congregation, gang, household, duo, Corpus data Wrapping up Analysis Background 7 / 23 ▶ Attempt to recreate Joosten et al.’s fjndings in English using attributive modifjers. ▶ Pulled adjective–noun pairs from BNC. Nouns: ▶ Excluded adjectives that were not simple property adjectives. ▶ Coded for whether adjective applied to the group or to the individuals making up ▶ Work only partially completed.

Introduction Corpus data Figure: For each noun, percentage of adjectives that target attribute of group/members. Accessibility of members 8 / 23 Wrapping up Background Analysis 1.00 0.75 type freq group 0.50 members 0.25 0.00 couple public family staff trio pair congregation gang household duo choir jury crew team class party army panel orchestra club delegation committee organization union government firm company association tribe

Introduction Accessibility of members Background Analysis Wrapping up Corpus data et al.’s fjndings in Dutch. member accessibility to a low degree of accessibility. nouns have a low degree of accessibility, while couple -type nouns have a high degree of accessibility. 9 / 23 ▶ Corpus data also shows variability in accessibility of members, in line with Joosten ▶ Adjective–noun data not S-shaped! Cline from nouns with a high degree of ▶ Grammatical distinctions predict S-shaped distributions. ▶ Therefore, difgerences in group nouns is conceptual, rather than grammatical. ▶ Still useful to talk about the ends of this cline by naming them: committee -type

Introduction (Petersen, 2007; Löbner, 2014; Kallmeyer & Osswald, 2014, a.o.). and each attribute has only one value (for any particular input). attributes. Accessibility of members structure) in the same representation. Decompositional. Frame Semantics Wrapping up Analysis Background 10 / 23 ▶ Assume Düsseldorf Frame Semantics, a theory of meaning representation ▶ These frames represent lexical and world knowledge (and not only argument ▶ Related to Barsalou frames in cognitive psychology (Barsalou, 1992). ▶ Structure: ▶ A frame is a recursive attribute–value structure. Values can have their own ▶ Attributes and values are unique. An attribute is held by a frame node only once, ▶ Values are typed in a type-feature hierarchy (Carpenter, 1992).

Introduction offjces, functions, actions by social agents (e.g. voters, politicians, police, parents, individual level. as particular social acts (Searle, 1995). physical ontology (e.g., “brute facts,” Searle (1995)). Accessibility of members spouses, teachers, and such). Social ontology Wrapping up Analysis Background 11 / 23 ▶ A social ontology provides for social entities: persons and institutions, roles, ▶ Entities in the social ontology are (ultimately) implemented by entities in a ▶ Persons are implemented by human animals. ▶ Social acts are implemented by doings that (under appropriate circumstances) count ▶ Ontological distinction between events that are at the social level and the

Introduction Accessibility of members Figure: Diagram of social ontology and mappings between ontological sorts inc c-const impl c-const basic level social level social act basic act basic individual social individual Social ontology visualization Wrapping up Analysis Background 12 / 23 θ θ

Introduction b. level to the basic level. individuals/events; its necessary that there be a downward path from the social def (10) level-generation. Löbner submitted.) Inspired by Searle’s “counts-as” relation and Goldman’s def Accessibility of members 13 / 23 def a. (9) Social ontology Wrapping up Analysis Background ▶ “Downward” mapping from social level to another level. inc t ( x s ) = ιx o . x o implements the social individual x s at time t impl t ( e s ) = ιe o . x o implements the social act e s at time t ▶ “Upward” mapping from a level (not necessarily social) to a social level. (See also c-const c ( x ) = ιy s . under circumstances c , x counts as y ▶ Stipulate that social individuals/events must be grounded by basic

Introduction Accessibility of members Background Analysis Wrapping up Groups are atomic Löbner 2018. 14 / 23 ▶ View groups as atomic social individuals, using ontology developed in Anderson & ▶ Note: subscript variables with s for social-level individuals and events, and o for basic-level individuals and events. x , y for individuals, e for events ▶ x s , y s , e s , x o , y o , e o , . . .

Introduction a basic-level entity corresponding to the individuals making up the group. and groups, with mappings between them. b. a. Accessibility of members (11) Tentative frame structure for group nouns Wrapping up Analysis Background 15 / 23 ▶ All groups have frames with a social-level object corresponding to the group, and ▶ Downward inc mapping maps groups to their members. � committee � = λx s ∃ y o [ committee ( x s ) ∧ inc i ( x s ) = y o ∧ . . . ] � couple � = λx s ∃ y o [ couple ( x s ) ∧ inc i ( x s ) = y o ∧ . . . ] ▶ Straightforward frame-based implementation of Barker 1992: atomic individuals ▶ Frame structure provides a way of hanging these two pieces together.

Introduction Accessibility of members b. ??The audience started at 21:00, but ... a. ??The couple began in March, but ... (13) The committee/club was founded in March, but ... a. (12) 16 / 23 the group into existence at some time. Founding of groups: how groups difger Wrapping up Analysis Background ▶ Groups difger in how they originate. ▶ Some groups are “founded.” They are associated with a creation event that brings ▶ Other groups are merely composed. ▶ This can be shown linguistically:

Introduction Accessibility of members (=same individuals) The show had the same audience each night. b. a. *Kevin and Kendra stopped dating, but they remained a couple. (15) Theresa May and Margaret Thatcher belonged to the same club. b. mandate. The senator left the committee, but the committee continued with its a. (14) Founding of groups Wrapping up Analysis Background 17 / 23 ▶ Founded groups may have members that vary over time. ▶ Other groups do not allow their members to vary.