INSPIRE: The underpinnings of Semantic change: A Linguistic, Cognitive, and Information-Theoretic Investigation

Yale University, New Haven CT

Investigators

Abstract

This INSPIRE award is partially funded by the Communication and Information Foundations Program of the Computing and Communications Foundations Division in the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE/CCF) and the Linguistics Program of the Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences (SBE/BCS). It is a well-established fact that meanings associated with linguistic expressions evolve in systematic ways across time. But we have little concrete understanding of the cognitive and communicative basis of such systematic change. Central to the proposed research are two questions: a) Does the constrained and trajectorial nature of semantic change derive from the organizational properties of the neurocognitive system? b) How precisely is the actuation and the implementation of instances of such changes rooted in the dynamics of rational communication? By simultaneously addressing these questions from the perspectives of linguistic structure, conceptual structure, brain-functional structure, and communication structure, the investigators hope to develop a cognitively grounded, experimentally viable, and mathematically informed theory of semantic change. Two cross-linguistically well-attested paths of change have been identified as being especially relevant in probing the potential connections between language, cognition and communication: (a) the path whereby locative expressions diachronically evolve to express possession, ultimately evolving into dative case markers; (b) the path whereby copulas or linking verbs arise from posture verbs (e.g., sit, stand) to encode the distinction between incidental/temporary and essential/permanent attribution of properties, generalizing at a later stage to encode both types of attribution. On the one hand, by experimentally studying the processing and neurological aspects of these semantic notions, the team will probe the interface between language and cognition -- specifically the connection to percept-based and non-percept-based dimensions of the conceptual system. These results will facilitate a better understanding of the cognitive pathways that organize the infrastructure of the conceptual system, particularly the prefrontal cortex. On the other hand, insights obtained from formal linguistic models, semantic change phenomena, and cognitive psychology, will be combined with ideas from engineering and statistics to formulate at least the beginnings of a probabilistic theory of semantic information, which models how information is exchanged in linguistic discourse. As envisaged, this project promises to have broader impact at two levels: First, it will liberate phenomena conventionally restricted to one small subfield in Linguistics and transform them into tools for investigating the fundamental mechanisms from which they emerge, making them relevant for Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Information Theory. It will also open up direct channels for a possible synthesis between the rich (but relatively messy) empirical facts of real language and abstract theories of communication, paving a path towards a Semantic Information Theory. Second, it will afford a cleaner understanding of how cognitive pathways guide the evolution of language in the linguistically typical (i.e., neurocognitively healthy) population. This, in turn, has direct implications for research on linguistically atypical populations. In both these ways, the project will redefine the boundaries between linguistics, information theory, cognitive science, and neuroscience and lead to new methodologies for studying semantics, cognition and information. The proposed research will also lead to the creation of a novel educational and research approach: the study of language change from an information-theoretic and neurocognitive perspective.