Semantic Types Research Articles

Semantic features analysis for biomedical lexical answer type prediction using ensemble learning approach

Lexical answer type prediction is integral to biomedical question–answering systems. LAT prediction aims to predict the expected answer’s semantic type of a factoid or list-type biomedical question. It also aids in the answer processing stage of a QA system to assign a high score to the most relevant answers. Although considerable research efforts exist for LAT prediction in diverse domains, it remains a challenging biomedical problem. LAT prediction for the biomedical field is a multi-label classification problem, as one biomedical question might have more than one expected answer type. Achieving high performance on this task is challenging as biomedical questions have limited lexical features. One biomedical question must be assigned multiple labels given these limited lexical features. In this paper, we develop a novel feature set (lexical, noun concepts, verb concepts, protein–protein interactions, and biomedical entities) from these lexical features. Using ensemble learning with bagging, we use the label power set transformation technique to classify multi-label. We evaluate the integrity of our proposed methodology on the publicly available multi-label biomedical questions dataset (MLBioMedLAT) and compare it with twelve state-of-the-art multi-label classification algorithms. Our proposed method attains a micro-F1 score of 77%, outperforming the baseline model by 25.5%.

(Im)possible Traces

In this article, I argue that when movement maps onto a λ-bound variable (a “trace”), that variable must be of an individual semantic type, such as type e or type d. Thus, even though natural language has expressions of higher types, these expressions cannot be represented as traces. When an individual-type trace would not be able to semantically compose in the launching site of movement, the moved element is forced to syntactically reconstruct. The motivation for this constraint on traces comes from a detailed investigation of how DPs in their different semantic guises—entities, properties, and generalized quantifiers—are interpreted when they move. I then argue that strong definite descriptions exhibit the same type-based restriction—namely, they cannot occur in higher-type positions, which I take as evidence for the theory that traces are definite descriptions.

부정적 온라인리뷰 의미속성 유형(사실성 vs. 평가성)이 소비자 구매의도에 미치는 차별적 영향: 판매자댓글 콘텐츠 유형(정보성 vs. 공감성) 및 해석수준(고해석수준 vs. 저해석수준)의 조절효과를 중심으로*

부정적 온라인리뷰 의미속성 유형(사실성 vs. 평가성)이 소비자 구매의도에 미치는 차별적 영향: 판매자댓글 콘텐츠 유형(정보성 vs. 공감성) 및 해석수준(고해석수준 vs. 저해석수준)의 조절효과를 중심으로*

Лингвофилософская концепция В.И. Абаева и осетино-кабардино-балкарские идеосеманти-ческие параллели

The article is devoted to the linguophilosophical concept of the outstanding Russian theorist, his-torian and philosopher of language, the largest Iranian scholar Vasily Ivanovich Abaev. The as-pects of the author’s linguophilosophical concept are presented based on two works by V.I. Abaev: “Reflection of the work of consciousness in the lexico-semantic system of language” (1970) and “Language as ideology and language as technique” (1934). In these works, he pays special atten-tion to the problem of the origin of human language. The theory of the origin of language itself, in his opinion, should be based on an optimal scientific theory that proceeds from the correct theo-retical premises and is consistent with the available empirical data. To explain the origin of a lan-guage, it is not the grammar of the language that is important, but the subject–significant vocabu-lary, as he believes that the origin of vocabulary is a single and integral problem, and the origin of grammar is inevitably divided into several particular issues. Language, according to V.I.Abaev, arose not from biological, but from the social needs of a person, from the need to relate things to their collective, to impose their own “brand” on them. Special attention is paid to the concept of ideosemantics, firstly introduced by V.I. Abaev in-to scientific circulation. He distinguishes two types of semantics: small semantics (or signal, technical), which includes a mandatory minimum of semantic functions that determine the mod-ern communicative use of the word, and large semantics, which is the sum of those concomitant cognitive and emotional representations that reflect the complex inner life of the word in its past and present. He defined this broader understanding of semantics by the term “ideosemantics”. Id-eosemantics, according to V. Abaev, is the most important criterion for the historical characteriza-tion of linguistic phenomena. V. Abaev sees the value of language at an early stage of its for-mation in its “ethnodemarkation function”. In conclusion, the article presents ideosemantic parallels in three genetically and structurally diverse languages: Ossetian, Kabardino-Circassian and Karachay-Balkar.

ВЕРБАЛИЗАЦИЯ СЕМАНТИКИ КАЖИМОСТИ И ПРИТВОРСТВА В ТУВИНСКИХ ФОЛЬКЛОРНЫХ И СОВРЕМЕННЫХ ТЕКСТАХ

The article examines grammaticalized comparative constructions of the Tuvan language, identified in texts of different genres. Particular attention is paid to the comparison standard marker. The purpose of the study is to identify and interpret the main means of expressing pretense and appearances in Tuvan texts, both modern and folklore. The relevance of the study is determined by the insufficient knowledge of the semantics of pretense and the increased interest in the study of the traditional and cultural characteristics of the linguistic consciousness of representatives of various ethnic groups. It seems relevant to show what lexical units can verbalize the semantics of appearance. The novelty of the research lies in the fact that for the first time, comparative structures were studied using the material of the Tuvan language and semantic types of markers of the specified semantics in folklore and modern texts were identified. The main research methods are the descriptive method and the structural modeling method. As a result of the study, comparative structures expressing both real and unreal comparison were identified and interpreted. In constructions of unreal comparison, the situation presented to the dependent predicative unit (DPU) does not take place in reality. It is arbitrarily constructed as a subjective interpretation of what is reported in the main predicative unit (GPU). This fictitious, unreal event becomes the standard comparisons for a real event expressed in MPU. The main means of marking modal meanings in the system of real comparison in the Tuvan language are comparatives: yshkash ‘like’; deg ‘like’. The same markers are also noted in unreal structures. Marking of unreal semantics is carried out in Tuvan folklore texts with multifunctional forms from the verb bol = ‘to be’ (boop, boor, etc.). The semantic invariant of such constructions is ‘pretend that...’. In addition, syntactic constructions of the predicate are widely used, expressing the relationship of the communicated or the message itself to reality with the postpositions deg, yshkash. It was established that the folklore texts under consideration use the same methods of expressing comparative relations that have been identified for the modern Tuvan language. However, the qualitative side (the complex of means and the nature of their functioning) and the quantitative side (the frequency of use of these units) are determined by the purpose of communication and depend on specific extralinguistic factor.

ПРЕЦЕДЕНТНЫЕ ТЕКСТЫ В ОБУЧЕНИИ РУССКОМУ ЯЗЫКУ: ВОЗМОЖНОЕ РЕШЕНИЕ ПРОБЛЕМЫ

The article examines topical methodic issue concerned with forming the ability of school students to comprehend texts of different functional and semantic types of speech and functional types of language, to retrieve primary / secondary and explicit / implicit information (FSES). It is proposed to solve this problem by including precedent texts in the teaching the Russian language. Possible solution of its problem is to identify linguistic personality of a student at the motivational and pragmatic levels. The purpose of the article is to substantiate the importance and necessity of studying precedent texts during teaching of Russian language in school and to show a probable system of tasks aimed at forming a set of skills and methods of action that ensure comprehension of precedent texts. The analysis results of language training kit and control sections reveal that 1) a theory about precedent texts is necessary (introduced in various forms of extracurricular work, including elective courses). It helps to create an indicative basis for actions with precedent texts; 2) system-activity and communicative approaches in teaching the Russian language determines forming system of skills and methods of action with this linguistic material. That explains the necessity to create the system of exercises. The author features parts of linguistic theory, specifies basic educational and linguistic skills and represents possible system of tasks on the example of a precedent statement and types of precedent texts thanks for including them in the text. Key words: precedent text, linguistic personality, educational and linguistic skill, precedent statement, type of precedent text according to the method of including in the text

A deep inverse convolutional neural network-based semantic classification method for land cover remote sensing images

The imbalance of land cover categories is a common problem. Some categories appear less frequently in the image, while others may occupy the vast majority of the proportion. This imbalance can lead the classifier to tend to predict categories with higher frequency of occurrence, while the recognition effect on minority categories is poor. In view of the difficulty of land cover remote sensing image multi-target semantic classification, a semantic classification method of land cover remote sensing image based on depth deconvolution neural network is proposed. In this method, the land cover remote sensing image semantic segmentation algorithm based on depth deconvolution neural network is used to segment the land cover remote sensing image with multi-target semantic segmentation; Four semantic features of color, texture, shape and size in land cover remote sensing image are extracted by using the semantic feature extraction method of remote sensing image based on improved sequential clustering algorithm; The classification and recognition method of remote sensing image semantic features based on random forest algorithm is adopted to classify and identify four semantic feature types of land cover remote sensing image, and realize the semantic classification of land cover remote sensing image. The experimental results show that after this method classifies the multi-target semantic types of land cover remote sensing images, the average values of Dice similarity coefficient and Hausdorff distance are 0.9877 and 0.9911 respectively, which can accurately classify the multi-target semantic types of land cover remote sensing images.

On Disentanglement of Asymmetrical Knowledge Transfer for Modality-Task Agnostic Federated Learning

There has been growing concern regarding data privacy during the development and deployment of Multimodal Foundation Models for Artificial General Intelligence (AGI), while Federated Learning (FL) allows multiple clients to collaboratively train models in a privacy-preserving manner. This paper formulates and studies Modality-task Agnostic Federated Learning (AFL) to pave the way toward privacy-preserving AGI. A unique property of AFL is the asymmetrical knowledge relationships among clients due to modality gaps, task gaps, and domain shifts between clients. This raises a challenge in learning an optimal inter-client information-sharing scheme that maximizes positive transfer and minimizes negative transfer for AFL. However, prior FL methods, mostly focusing on symmetrical knowledge transfer, tend to exhibit insufficient positive transfer and fail to fully avoid negative transfer during inter-client collaboration. To address this issue, we propose DisentAFL, which leverages a two-stage Knowledge Disentanglement and Gating mechanism to explicitly decompose the original asymmetrical inter-client information-sharing scheme into several independent symmetrical inter-client information-sharing schemes, each of which corresponds to certain semantic knowledge type learned from the local tasks. Experimental results demonstrate the superiority of our method on AFL than baselines.

Document Retrieval System for Biomedical Question Answering

In this paper, we describe our biomedical document retrieval system and answers extraction module, which is part of the biomedical question answering system. Approximately 26.5 million PubMed articles are indexed as a corpus with the Apache Lucene text search engine. Our proposed system consists of three parts. The first part is the question analysis module, which analyzes the question and enriches it with biomedical concepts related to its wording. The second part of the system is the document retrieval module. In this step, the proposed system is tested using different information retrieval models, like the Vector Space Model, Okapi BM25, and Query Likelihood. The third part is the document re-ranking module, which is responsible for re-arranging the documents retrieved in the previous step. For this study, we tested our proposed system with 6B training questions from the BioASQ challenge task. We obtained the best MAP score on the document retrieval phase when we used Query Likelihood with the Dirichlet Smoothing model. We used the sequential dependence model at the re-rank phase, but this model produced a worse MAP score than the previous phase. In similarity calculation, we included the Named Entity Recognition (NER), UMLS Concept Unique Identifiers (CUI), and UMLS Semantic Types of the words in the question to find the sentences containing the answer. Using this approach, we observed a performance enhancement of roughly 25% for the top 20 outcomes, surpassing another method employed in this study, which relies solely on textual similarity.

Conative animal calls in Macha Oromo: function and form

Abstract This article studies the category of conative animal calls (CACs) in a Cushitic variety – Macha Oromo (Ethiopia). The authors analyze the function (pragma-semantics) and form (phonetics and morphology) of 52 CACs collected during fieldwork activities and conclude the following: the category of CACs in Macha Orono largely complies with the prototype of a CAC posited recently in literature. Moreover, Macha Oromo data suggest a few novel generalizations (a close relationship between summonses and onomatopoeias, and between dispersals and motion-inciting/sustaining directionals, as well as a general preference for close I/U vowels) and raise a question regarding the validity of the hierarchy of semantic types of CACs proposed in some studies.

The grammaticalization and grammatical meaning of a ‘do’ support verb in the northern Italian Camuno dialect

Abstract This paper provides a case study of the grammaticalization of ‘do’ as a support verb in the northern Italian dialect of Camuno. It demonstrates the relative compatibility of fa ‘do’ with different semantic types of supported verbs through the results of an elicitation experiment. A comparison of results from adjacent dialects reveals a series of progressively more grammaticalized forms with three stages: ‘pragmatic’ ‘do’-support, largely restricted to agentive-subject, activity verbs, where question type depends mainly on the pragmatics; ‘agentive’ ‘do’-support, where use with that core group of verbs is largely categorial, and there is more use with theme-subject, change-of-state verbs and a few experiencer-subject, stative verbs; and ‘generalized’ ‘do’-support where optionality remains only with the most resistant stative verbs. Along with loss of lexical content in ‘do’, comes a reduction in salience of the special question meaning. Furthermore, a question with lexical fa ‘do’ (in an optional FS dialect) implies physical evidence exists to determine the truth of a proposition. In a question with bleached fa ‘do’ (in an obligatory FS dialect) the connection to reality has been lost leaving only the implication, and fa ‘do’ has then become an epistemic modal.

Semantic Choice in Translation from Morris' Modern Semiotic Theory

From the perspective of the Internet, this article focuses on semantic selection in translation, and delves into the semantic selection of translation in Morris's modern semiotic theory. After exploring the relevant theoretical concepts by dimensions, it is found that the semantics of translation in Morris' modern semiotic theory can be divided into three types: denotational semantics, pragmatic semantics and intra-verbal semantics. Finally, the choice of the three types of semantics: denotational semantics, pragmatic semantics and intra-verbal semantics is explored in depth to provide guidance for related theoretical research.

Cognitive modelling of concepts in the mental lexicon with multilayer networks: Insights, advancements, and future challenges.

The mental lexicon is a complex cognitive system representing information about the words/concepts that one knows. Over decades psychological experiments have shown that conceptual associations across multiple, interactive cognitive levels can greatly influence word acquisition, storage, and processing. How can semantic, phonological, syntactic, and other types of conceptual associations be mapped within a coherent mathematical framework to study how the mental lexicon works? Here we review cognitive multilayer networks as a promising quantitative and interpretative framework for investigating the mental lexicon. Cognitive multilayer networks can map multiple types of information at once, thus capturing how different layers of associations might co-exist within the mental lexicon and influence cognitive processing. This review starts with a gentle introduction to the structure and formalism of multilayer networks. We then discuss quantitative mechanisms of psychological phenomena that could not be observed in single-layer networks and were only unveiled by combining multiple layers of the lexicon: (i) multiplex viability highlights language kernels and facilitative effects of knowledge processing in healthy and clinical populations; (ii) multilayer community detection enables contextual meaning reconstruction depending on psycholinguistic features; (iii) layer analysis can mediate latent interactions of mediation, suppression, and facilitation for lexical access. By outlining novel quantitative perspectives where multilayer networks can shed light on cognitive knowledge representations, including in next-generation brain/mind models, we discuss key limitations and promising directions for cutting-edge future research.

Functional and semantic basis of the organisation of the process of foreign language communicative competence development of students

Relevance. By focusing on lexicalised grammatical material as a means of forming English-language communicative competence in non-linguistic specialisations educators can better prepare students to excel in their chosen professions by equipping them with the language knowledge for effective communication in their respective fields. Purpose. This study aims to demonstrate how functionally described grammatical units effectively shape speech and communicative competence in teaching "Professionally oriented foreign language" within "Tourism" and "Socio-Cultural Service" specialisations. The objective of the study is to check the mechanism of activation of frequency semantic units in the professional speech of future specialists in the field of tourism. Methodology. The paper uses such research methods as semantic analysis, statistical method, modelling, approbation, analysis of research subject based on the processing of educational texts. 15 2nd-year students of the specialisation "Tourism" and "Socio-cultural service" took part in the study. Results. The conducted research proves the necessity of organising a system of preliminary preparation of material with the selection of lexicalised material for developing English-language communicative competence. An algorithm and corresponding practices have been devised to expedite students' foreign language communicative competence development, ensuring proficient utilisation of acquired knowledge in their professional endeavors. The study delineates the constituent elements of foreign language communicative competency and aligns them with the overarching objectives of teaching within non-linguistic specialisations, encompassing linguistic, sociolinguistic, sociocultural, social, reflexive, pragmatic, and discursive components. Conclusions. Lexicalised grammatical material significantly influences the development of foreign language communicative competence in non-linguistic students specializing in "Tourism" and "Socio-cultural Service". Integrating intercultural competency into language acquisition is crucial, enhancing students' ability to navigate diverse cultural contexts effectively. The results of the study can be used in conducting English language classes of the discipline "Professionally oriented foreign language" in the specialisations "Tourism" and "Socio-cultural service". Keywords: semantic types of elementary utterances; speech act; lexical compatibility; lexical variation; syntactic field; syntactic synonymy

On Italian spatial prepositions and measure phrases: reconciling the data with theoretical accounts

Abstract The goal of this article is to offer new empirical evidence regarding the grammatical and semantic properties of Italian spatial prepositions, and to provide a theoretical account based on this evidence. We show that Italian has four grammatical types of prepositions (simple, complex, contracted and uncontracted), and three semantic types (geometric, projective and region prepositions). By studying the syntactic distribution of prepositions and the phrases they form with measure phrases (e.g., dieci metri ‘ten meters’) we argue that a non-isomorphic (i.e., not one-to-one) relation between grammatical and semantic type emerges. Region and geometric prepositions form phrases that block the presence of measure phrases (e.g., #dieci metri a fianco del muro ‘ten meters beside the wall’), whereas projective prepositions license them (e.g., dieci metri dietro al muro ‘ten meters behind the wall’). We show that previous accounts postulate a type of symmetry that leads to problematic predictions regarding these patterns. We then propose an alternative account based on the Lexical Syntax framework that models the data via a feature-matching mechanism.

TDCS of right-hemispheric Wernicke’s area homologue affects contextual learning of novel lexicon

Numerous studies have shown robust evidence of the right hemisphere’s involvement in the language function, for instance in the processing of intonation, grammar, word meanings, metaphors, etc. However, its role in lexicon acquisition remains obscure. We applied transcranial direct current stimulation (tDCS) over the right-hemispheric homologue of Wernicke’s area to assess its putative involvement in the processing of different types of novel semantics. After receiving 15 min of anodal, cathodal, or sham (placebo) tDCS, three groups of healthy participants learnt novel concrete and abstract words in the context of short stories. Learning outcomes were assessed using a battery of tests immediately after this contextual learning session and 24 h later. As a result, an inhibitory effect of cathodal tDCS and a facilitatory effect of anodal tDCS were found for abstract word acquisition only. We also found a significant drop in task performance on the second day of the assessment for both word types in all the stimulation groups, suggesting no significant influence of tDCS on the post-learning consolidation of new memory traces. The results suggest an involvement of Wernicke’s right-hemispheric counterpart in initial encoding (but not consolidation) of abstract semantics, which may be explained either by the right hemispheres direct role in processing lexical semantics or by an indirect impact of tDCS on contralateral (left-hemispheric) cortical areas through cross-callosal connections.

Legal Vocabulary as a Means of Conceptualization of Cultural Communicative Situations by Aristocrats in Marcel Proust’s Novel

The author of the article argues that during the Third Republic French aristocrats used legal terms figuratively in their communication as is evidenced in Marcel Proust’s novel. The paper presents legal terms which, used metaphorically and in similes, create a certain cultural code for the personages’ private communication. Communicative situations (secular and political) employing figurative legal terms whose meaning can be perceived only by French aristocrats and their closest social circle, creating a special code for message exchange, served as material for our study. In order to describe these situations, Marcel Proust resorts to general legal vocabulary, the terms of Constitutional Law, Civil Law, International Public Law, as well as some concepts of the history of the French Law. The main methods of our study are semantic, linguistic, stylistic and contextual types of analysis. The relevance of our article could be justified by the fact that, to our knowledge, there are no scientific papers on stylistic devices, based on specialist terminology, in a literary text, or in communication. Linguists are interested in the functioning of specialist terminology as well as in the issues of classification and analysis of different stylistic devices. With regard to the stylistic analysis, we may say that the Guermants, the personages of the novel, are capable of impacting the opinion of their interlocutors in many subtle ways, just like journalists impact the viewpoints of their readers while covering political events in the news. For this purpose, they also resort to different delicate and ingenious techniques, such as play on words, aiming at belittling someone in the eyes of others. The inability of the readers to understand the meaning of some of their statements featuring legal terms to refer to some larger cultural and communicative situations, is one way for the Guermants to underline their own uniqueness, treating the people around them in terms of in-(out-)group members. Numerous communicative situations related to the figurative use of legal vocabulary allow the writer to represent Marcel’s disappointment by the aristocrats’ world he is now familiar with, as well as his misunderstanding of Baron de Charlus’ sensual hints, and total incomprehension of the new modern art by the Duke of Guermants.

The ambiguous nature of complex semantic types: an experimental investigation

Abstract Words with complex semantic types such as book are characterised by a multiplicity of interpretations that are not mutually exclusive (e.g., as a physical object and/or informational content). Their status with respect to lexical ambiguity is notoriously unclear, and it is debatable whether complex types are a particular form of polysemy (closely related to metonymy) or whether they belong to monosemy. In this study, we investigate the nature of complex types by conducting two experiments on ambiguous nouns in French. The first experiment collects speakers’ judgements about the sameness of meaning between different uses of complex-type, metonymic and monosemous words. The second experiment uses a priming paradigm and a sensicality task to investigate the online processing of complex-type words, as opposed to metonymic and monosemous words. Overall results indicate that, on a continuum of lexical ambiguity, complex types are closer to monosemy than to metonymy. The different interpretations of complex-type words are highly connected and fall under the same meaning, arguably in relation to a unique reference. These results suggest that complex types are associated with single underspecified entries in the mental lexicon. Moreover, they highlight the need for a model of lexical representations of ambiguous words that can account for the difference between complex types and metonymy.

Regionally specific cortical lateralization of abstract and concrete verb processing: Magnetic mismatch negativity study

The neural underpinnings of processing concrete and abstract semantics remain poorly understood. Previous fMRI studies have shown that multimodal and amodal neural networks respond differentially to different semantic types; importantly, abstract semantics activates more left-lateralized networks, as opposed to more bilateral activity for concrete words. Due to the lack of temporal resolution, these fMRI results do not allow to easily separate language- and task-specific brain responses and to disentangle early processing stages from later post-comprehension phenomena. To tackle this, we used magnetoencephalography (MEG), a time-resolved neuroimaging technique, in combination with a task-free oddball mismatch negativity (MMN) paradigm, an established approach to tracking early automatic activation of word-specific memory traces in the brain. We recorded the magnetic MMN responses in 30 healthy adults to auditorily presented abstract and concrete action verbs to assess lateralization of word-specific lexico-semantic processing in a set of neocortical areas. We found that MMN responses to these stimuli showed different lateralization patterns of activity in the upper limb motor area (BA4) and parts of Broca's area (BA45/BA47) within ∼100–350 ms after the word disambiguation point. Importantly, the greater leftward response lateralization for abstract semantics was due to the lesser involvement of the right-hemispheric homologues, not increased left-hemispheric activity. These findings suggest differential region-specific involvement of bilateral sensorimotor systems already in the early automatic stages of processing abstract and concrete action semantics.

The semantic content of concrete, abstract, specific, and generic concepts

Abstract Abstraction processes involve two variables that are often confused with one another: concreteness (banana versus belief) and specificity (chair versus furniture or Buddhism versus religion). Researchers are investigating the relationship between them, but many questions remain open, such as: What type of semantics characterizes words with varying degrees of concreteness and specificity? We tackle this topic through an in-depth semantic analysis of 1049 Italian words for which human-generated concreteness and specificity ratings are available. Our findings show that (as expected) the semantics of concrete and abstract concepts differs, but most interestingly when specificity is considered, the variance in concreteness ratings explained by semantic types increases substantially, suggesting the need to carefully control word specificity in future research. For instance, mathematical concepts (phase) are on average abstract and generic, while behavioral qualities (arrogant) are on average abstract but specific. Moreover, through cluster analyses based on concreteness and specificity ratings, we observe the bottom-up emergence of four subgroups of semantically coherent words. Overall, this study provides empirical evidence and theoretical insight into the interplay of concreteness and specificity in shaping semantic categorization.