How Conceptual Are Semantic Maps?

How conceptual are semantic maps?

The question addressed in this paper is whether (and to what extent) a semantic map aimed at representing the multifunctionality of a given construction (or set of constructions) in discourse can be thought of as endowed with conceptual reality. To be considered as a mental representation that is essentially similar in all human brains, such a map should meet two requirements: (i) its nodes sho...

Semantic Maps, Conceptual Spaces, and Mental Represen- Tation

The typological literature generally assumes that semantic maps and the underlying conceptual spaces have mental reality, that is, they correspond to a universal arrangement of the relevant conceptual situations in a speaker's mind, based on perceived relations of similarity between these conceptual situations (Croft 2001 and 2003, Haspelmath 2003, among others). Croft (2003) goes far as arguin...

How Are Semantic Metarepresentations Built and Processed?

This paper looks at some aspects of semantic metarepresentation. It is mostly concerned with questions more formal, concerning the representation format in semantic metarepresentations, and the way they are processed. §1 distinguishes between metacognition and metarepresentation in a narrow and broad sense. §2 reminds the reader of some main areas where metarepresentations have to be used. The ...

Food Taxes: How Likely Are Likely Effects?

Conceptual closure. How memories are woven into an interconnected worldview.

This paper describes a tentative model for how discrete memories transform into an interconnected conceptual network, or worldview, wherein relationships between memories are forged by way of abstractions. The model draws on Kauffman's theory of how an information-evolving system can emerge through the formation and closure of an autocatalytic network. Here, the information units are not cataly...