Abstract
That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2 Introduction: What's in a name? For cognitive science, the question is more than rhetorical. Rather, it gets to the heart of what we know – and do not know – about how words are stored and retrieved by the human brain, and there are several competing ideas about how it should be approached. The question becomes even more complex when one considers that not all words are names, or nouns; a complete theory of lexical semantics should also account for the meaning of verbs, adjectives, and other so-called “content” words, associated with what many have argued are fundamentally different types of concepts (O'Grady, 1997). Where can we begin?: Sensory/functional approaches. One school of thought holds that there are roughly two kinds of semantic knowledge associated with the lexical entry for any given word. On the one hand, there is information that derives directly from the senses, including features representing an object's smell, color, size, and propensity to have sharp thorns. On the other hand, there is everything else – for example, the same item's monetary and sentimental value, where it can typically be found, and whether it is suitable for consumption as jam. The latter sort of information is often (somewhat imprecisely) called “associative” or “functional.” Accordingly, this method of partitioning the lexicon has been called the sensory/functional theory (SFT) of semantic knowledge.
| Original language | English (US) |
|---|---|
| Title of host publication | Neural Basis of Semantic Memory |
| Publisher | Cambridge University Press |
| Pages | 205-216 |
| Number of pages | 12 |
| ISBN (Print) | 9780511544965, 0521848709, 9780521848701 |
| DOIs | |
| State | Published - Jan 1 2007 |
Fingerprint
ASJC Scopus subject areas
- Medicine(all)
Cite this
The semantic representation of nouns and verbs. / Shapiro, Kevin; Hillis-Trupe, Argye; Caramazza, Alfonso.
Neural Basis of Semantic Memory. Cambridge University Press, 2007. p. 205-216.Research output: Chapter in Book/Report/Conference proceeding › Chapter
}
TY - CHAP
T1 - The semantic representation of nouns and verbs
AU - Shapiro, Kevin
AU - Hillis-Trupe, Argye
AU - Caramazza, Alfonso
PY - 2007/1/1
Y1 - 2007/1/1
N2 - That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2 Introduction: What's in a name? For cognitive science, the question is more than rhetorical. Rather, it gets to the heart of what we know – and do not know – about how words are stored and retrieved by the human brain, and there are several competing ideas about how it should be approached. The question becomes even more complex when one considers that not all words are names, or nouns; a complete theory of lexical semantics should also account for the meaning of verbs, adjectives, and other so-called “content” words, associated with what many have argued are fundamentally different types of concepts (O'Grady, 1997). Where can we begin?: Sensory/functional approaches. One school of thought holds that there are roughly two kinds of semantic knowledge associated with the lexical entry for any given word. On the one hand, there is information that derives directly from the senses, including features representing an object's smell, color, size, and propensity to have sharp thorns. On the other hand, there is everything else – for example, the same item's monetary and sentimental value, where it can typically be found, and whether it is suitable for consumption as jam. The latter sort of information is often (somewhat imprecisely) called “associative” or “functional.” Accordingly, this method of partitioning the lexicon has been called the sensory/functional theory (SFT) of semantic knowledge.
AB - That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet. William Shakespeare, Romeo and Juliet, Act II, Scene 2 Introduction: What's in a name? For cognitive science, the question is more than rhetorical. Rather, it gets to the heart of what we know – and do not know – about how words are stored and retrieved by the human brain, and there are several competing ideas about how it should be approached. The question becomes even more complex when one considers that not all words are names, or nouns; a complete theory of lexical semantics should also account for the meaning of verbs, adjectives, and other so-called “content” words, associated with what many have argued are fundamentally different types of concepts (O'Grady, 1997). Where can we begin?: Sensory/functional approaches. One school of thought holds that there are roughly two kinds of semantic knowledge associated with the lexical entry for any given word. On the one hand, there is information that derives directly from the senses, including features representing an object's smell, color, size, and propensity to have sharp thorns. On the other hand, there is everything else – for example, the same item's monetary and sentimental value, where it can typically be found, and whether it is suitable for consumption as jam. The latter sort of information is often (somewhat imprecisely) called “associative” or “functional.” Accordingly, this method of partitioning the lexicon has been called the sensory/functional theory (SFT) of semantic knowledge.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=52949113908&partnerID=8YFLogxK
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=52949113908&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1017/CBO9780511544965.009
DO - 10.1017/CBO9780511544965.009
M3 - Chapter
AN - SCOPUS:52949113908
SN - 9780511544965
SN - 0521848709
SN - 9780521848701
SP - 205
EP - 216
BT - Neural Basis of Semantic Memory
PB - Cambridge University Press
ER -