TY  - CHAP
A1  - Abrusán, Márta
A1  - Asher, Nicholas
A1  - Cruys, Tim van de
T1  - Content vs. function words: the view from distributional semantics
T2  - Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, Vol. 1 / eds. Uli Sauerland and Stephanie Solt. Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft: ZAS papers in linguistics ; Nr. 60
N2  - Counter to the often assumed division of labour between content and function words, we argue that both types of words have lexical content in addition to their logical content. We propose that the difference between the two types of words is a difference in degree. We conducted a preliminary study of quantificational determiners with methods from Distributional Semantics, a computational approach to natural language semantics. Our findings have implications both for distributional and formal semantics. For distributional semantics, they indicate a possible avenue that can be used to tap into the meaning of function words. For formal semantics, they bring into light the context-sensitive, lexical aspects of function words that can be recovered from the data even when these aspects are not overtly marked. Such pervasive context-sensitivity has profound implications for how we think about meaning in natural language.
KW  - function words
KW  - lexical semantics
KW  - determiners
KW  - distributional semantics
Y1  - 2020
UR  - http://publikationen.ub.uni-frankfurt.de/frontdoor/index/index/docId/55928
UR  - https://nbn-resolving.org/urn:nbn:de:hebis:30:3-559283
SN  - 1435-9588
SN  - 0947-7055
SP  - 1
EP  - 21
PB  - Leibniz-Zentrum Allgemeine Sprachwissenschaft (ZAS)
CY  - Berlin
ER  -