TY - JOUR A1 - Rabovsky, Milena A1 - McClelland, James L. T1 - Quasi-compositional mapping from form to meaning BT - a neural network-based approach to capturing neural responses during human language comprehension JF - Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London : B, Biological sciences N2 - We argue that natural language can be usefully described as quasi-compositional and we suggest that deep learning-based neural language models bear long-term promise to capture how language conveys meaning. We also note that a successful account of human language processing should explain both the outcome of the comprehension process and the continuous internal processes underlying this performance. These points motivate our discussion of a neural network model of sentence comprehension, the Sentence Gestalt model, which we have used to account for the N400 component of the event-related brain potential (ERP), which tracks meaning processing as it happens in real time. The model, which shares features with recent deep learning-based language models, simulates N400 amplitude as the automatic update of a probabilistic representation of the situation or event described by the sentence, corresponding to a temporal difference learning signal at the level of meaning. We suggest that this process happens relatively automatically, and that sometimes a more-controlled attention-dependent process is necessary for successful comprehension, which may be reflected in the subsequent P600 ERP component. We relate this account to current deep learning models as well as classic linguistic theory, and use it to illustrate a domain general perspective on some specific linguistic operations postulated based on compositional analyses of natural language. This article is part of the theme issue 'Towards mechanistic models of meaning composition'. KW - language KW - meaning KW - event-related brain potentials KW - neural networks KW - N400 KW - P600 Y1 - 2019 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1098/rstb.2019.0313 SN - 0962-8436 SN - 1471-2970 SN - 0080-4622 VL - 375 IS - 1791 PB - Royal Society CY - London ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rabovsky, Milena T1 - Change in a probabilistic representation of meaning can account for N400 effects on articles BT - a neural network model JF - Neuropsychologia : an international journal in behavioural and cognitive neuroscience N2 - Increased N400 amplitudes on indefinite articles (a/an) incompatible with expected nouns have been initially taken as strong evidence for probabilistic pre-activation of phonological word forms, and recently been intensely debated because they have been difficult to replicate. Here, these effects are simulated using a neural network model of sentence comprehension that we previously used to simulate a broad range of empirical N400 effects. The model produces the effects when the cue validity of the articles concerning upcoming noun meaning in the learning environment is high, but fails to produce the effects when the cue validity of the articles is low due to adjectives presented between articles and nouns during training. These simulations provide insight into one of the factors potentially contributing to the small size of the effects in empirical studies and generate predictions for cross-linguistic differences in article induced N400 effects based on articles’ cue validity. The model accounts for article induced N400 effects without assuming pre-activation of word forms, and instead simulates these effects as the stimulus-induced change in a probabilistic representation of meaning corresponding to an implicit semantic prediction error. KW - N400 KW - ERPs KW - prediction KW - neural networks KW - cue validity KW - meaning Y1 - 2020 U6 - https://doi.org/10.1016/j.neuropsychologia.2020.107466 SN - 0028-3932 SN - 1873-3514 VL - 143 PB - Elsevier CY - Oxford ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Hassler, Gerda T1 - Meaning and Function BT - the Place of Coseriu’s Linguistic Theory in Functional Linguistics JF - Concordia discors vs. discordia concors : international journal for researches into comparative literature, contrastive linguistics, cross-cultural and translation strategies N2 - The use of the word functional in the most diverse theories and approaches has contributed in no small measure to the confusion in linguistics today. This article does not claim to give an overview of the different directions of functionalism in linguistics. Rather, the aim is to present what Coseriu‘s view characterised as functional in his time and to what extent his theory outlined a path that still makes sense in functional-cognitive linguistics today. This will involve an examination of Coseriu‘s difficult-to-identify concept of function. Furthermore, the article will also show that functional thinking is relevant for current grammatography. KW - function KW - meaning KW - grammatography KW - oppositions KW - functional unit Y1 - 2021 SN - 2065-4057 SN - 2457-8835 IS - 16 SP - 17 EP - 50 PB - Ştefan cel Mare University Press CY - Suceava ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Haßler, Gerda T1 - Meaning and Function BT - the Place of Coseriu’s Linguistic Theory in Functional Linguistics JF - Concordia discors vs. discordia concors : researches into comparative literature, contrastive linguistics, translation and cross-cultural strategies N2 - The use of the word functional in the most diverse theories and approaches has contributed in no small measure to the confusion in linguistics today. This article does not claim to give an overview of the different directions of functionalism in linguistics. Rather, the aim is to present what Coseriu‘s view characterised as functional in his time and to what extent his theory outlined a path that still makes sense in functional-cognitive linguistics today. This will involve an examination of Coseriu‘s difficult-to-identify concept of function. Furthermore, the article will also show that functional thinking is relevant for current grammatography. KW - function KW - meaning KW - grammatography KW - oppositions KW - functional unit Y1 - 2022 SN - 2065-4057 SN - 2457-8835 VL - 16 IS - 2 SP - 17 EP - 50 PB - Ştefan cel Mare University Press CY - Suceava ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Rabovsky, Milena T1 - Change in a probabilistic representation of meaning can account for N400 effects on articles: a neural network model JF - Neuropsychologia N2 - Increased N400 amplitudes on indefinite articles (a/an) incompatible with expected nouns have been initially taken as strong evidence for probabilistic pre-activation of phonological word forms, and recently been intensely debated because they have been difficult to replicate. Here, these effects are simulated using a neural network model of sentence comprehension that we previously used to simulate a broad range of empirical N400 effects. The model produces the effects when the cue validity of the articles concerning upcoming noun meaning in the learning environment is high, but fails to produce the effects when the cue validity of the articles is low due to adjectives presented between articles and nouns during training. These simulations provide insight into one of the factors potentially contributing to the small size of the effects in empirical studies and generate predictions for cross-linguistic differences in article induced N400 effects based on articles’ cue validity. The model accounts for article induced N400 effects without assuming pre-activation of word forms, and instead simulates these effects as the stimulus-induced change in a probabilistic representation of meaning corresponding to an implicit semantic prediction error. KW - N400 KW - ERPs KW - prediction KW - neural networks KW - cue validity KW - meaning Y1 - 2019 VL - 143 PB - Elsevier CY - Amsterdam ER - TY - JOUR A1 - Peters, Friedrich Ernst T1 - Jochen Pahl un de Subrekter JF - Digitale Edition : Friedrich Ernst Peters N2 - Humorvolle kleine Geschichte um einen naiven Bauern, der sich in der Stadt ein bisschen wichtig machen, „dick doon“ will und den sein Plattdeutsch dazu verleitet, den Begriff „Subrektor“ falsch zu verstehen. KW - Plattdeutsch KW - Niederdeutsch KW - Hochdeutsch KW - Bedeutung KW - Sozialer Aufstieg KW - Low German KW - German KW - meaning KW - advancement Y1 - 2012 U6 - http://nbn-resolving.de/urn/resolver.pl?urn:nbn:de:kobv:517-opus-59637 PB - Universitätsverlag Potsdam CY - Potsdam ER -