A Model of Categorization and Compositionality (Sense Determination) in the Light of a Procedural Model of Language (Based on Selection and the Communicative Field)

Abstract

Traditional models of language are based on the Aristotelian model of a category, and assume that linguistic symbols are correlated with senses defined by sets of necessary features (properties and relations), which allow one to identify category members. A linguistic pattern (syntax), in turn, defines the order in which the senses related to individual symbols combine to convey the sense of the linguistic constructions they form. Determining the sense of the combination of linguistic items typically involves taking the cross-section of the features indicated by each category. As we all know, neither the models of language based on Aristotle’s model of a category, nor those based on modern successors of Aristotle’s category – a prototype model of a category, or a fuzzy set model of a category – let us reflect natural language categorization, or compositionality sufficiently well. Therefore, in this paper, we propose another, more adequate model of linguistic sense categorization and compositionality.