We present an account of semantics that is not construed as a mapping of language to theworld but rather as amapping between individual meaning spaces. The meanings of linguistic entities are established via a “meeting of minds.” The concepts in the minds of communicating individuals are modeled as convex regions in conceptual spaces. We outline a mathematical framework, based on fixpoints in continuous mappings between conceptual spaces, that can be used to model such a semantics. If concepts are convex, it will in general be possible for interactors to agree on joint meaning even if they start out from different representational spaces. Language is discrete, while mental representations tend to be continuous—posing a seeming paradox. We show that the convexity assumption allows us to address this problem. Using examples, we further show that our approach helps explain the semantic processes involved in the composition of expressions.

Semantics, conceptual spaces, and the meeting of minds

WARGLIEN, Massimo;
2013-01-01

Abstract

We present an account of semantics that is not construed as a mapping of language to theworld but rather as amapping between individual meaning spaces. The meanings of linguistic entities are established via a “meeting of minds.” The concepts in the minds of communicating individuals are modeled as convex regions in conceptual spaces. We outline a mathematical framework, based on fixpoints in continuous mappings between conceptual spaces, that can be used to model such a semantics. If concepts are convex, it will in general be possible for interactors to agree on joint meaning even if they start out from different representational spaces. Language is discrete, while mental representations tend to be continuous—posing a seeming paradox. We show that the convexity assumption allows us to address this problem. Using examples, we further show that our approach helps explain the semantic processes involved in the composition of expressions.
2013
190
File in questo prodotto:
File Dimensione Formato  
Synthese.pdf

accesso aperto

Tipologia: Documento in Post-print
Licenza: Accesso gratuito (solo visione)
Dimensione 665.83 kB
Formato Adobe PDF
665.83 kB Adobe PDF Visualizza/Apri

I documenti in ARCA sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.

Utilizza questo identificativo per citare o creare un link a questo documento: https://hdl.handle.net/10278/42382
Citazioni
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.pmc??? ND
  • Scopus 43
  • ???jsp.display-item.citation.isi??? 40
social impact