@inproceedings{rambelli-bolognesi-2024-contextual-variability,
title = "The Contextual Variability of {E}nglish Nouns: The Impact of Categorical Specificity beyond Conceptual Concreteness",
author = "Rambelli, Giulia and
Bolognesi, Marianna",
editor = "Calzolari, Nicoletta and
Kan, Min-Yen and
Hoste, Veronique and
Lenci, Alessandro and
Sakti, Sakriani and
Xue, Nianwen",
booktitle = "Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024)",
month = may,
year = "2024",
address = "Torino, Italia",
publisher = "ELRA and ICCL",
url = "https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.1377",
pages = "15854--15860",
abstract = "Research on conceptual abstraction has investigated the differences in contextual distributions, or {``}contextual variability,{''} of abstract and concrete concept words (e.g., *love* vs. *cat*). Empirical studies on this topic show that abstract words tend to occur in diverse linguistic contexts, while concrete words are typically constrained within more homogeneous contexts. Nonetheless, these investigations have somewhat overlooked a factor that influences both abstract and concrete concepts: *Categorial Specificity*, which denotes the inclusiveness of a category (e.g., *ragdoll* vs. *mammal*). We argue that more specific words are tied to narrower domains, independently or whether they are concrete or abstract, thus resulting in a diminished degree of contextual variability when compared to generic terms. In this study, we used distributional models to investigate the interplay between contextual variability, concreteness, specificity, and their interaction. Analyzing 676 English nouns, we found that contextual variability is explained by both concreteness and specificity: more specific words have closer contexts, while generic words, whether abstract or concrete, exhibit less related contexts.",
}
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<abstract>Research on conceptual abstraction has investigated the differences in contextual distributions, or “contextual variability,” of abstract and concrete concept words (e.g., *love* vs. *cat*). Empirical studies on this topic show that abstract words tend to occur in diverse linguistic contexts, while concrete words are typically constrained within more homogeneous contexts. Nonetheless, these investigations have somewhat overlooked a factor that influences both abstract and concrete concepts: *Categorial Specificity*, which denotes the inclusiveness of a category (e.g., *ragdoll* vs. *mammal*). We argue that more specific words are tied to narrower domains, independently or whether they are concrete or abstract, thus resulting in a diminished degree of contextual variability when compared to generic terms. In this study, we used distributional models to investigate the interplay between contextual variability, concreteness, specificity, and their interaction. Analyzing 676 English nouns, we found that contextual variability is explained by both concreteness and specificity: more specific words have closer contexts, while generic words, whether abstract or concrete, exhibit less related contexts.</abstract>
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%0 Conference Proceedings
%T The Contextual Variability of English Nouns: The Impact of Categorical Specificity beyond Conceptual Concreteness
%A Rambelli, Giulia
%A Bolognesi, Marianna
%Y Calzolari, Nicoletta
%Y Kan, Min-Yen
%Y Hoste, Veronique
%Y Lenci, Alessandro
%Y Sakti, Sakriani
%Y Xue, Nianwen
%S Proceedings of the 2024 Joint International Conference on Computational Linguistics, Language Resources and Evaluation (LREC-COLING 2024)
%D 2024
%8 May
%I ELRA and ICCL
%C Torino, Italia
%F rambelli-bolognesi-2024-contextual-variability
%X Research on conceptual abstraction has investigated the differences in contextual distributions, or “contextual variability,” of abstract and concrete concept words (e.g., *love* vs. *cat*). Empirical studies on this topic show that abstract words tend to occur in diverse linguistic contexts, while concrete words are typically constrained within more homogeneous contexts. Nonetheless, these investigations have somewhat overlooked a factor that influences both abstract and concrete concepts: *Categorial Specificity*, which denotes the inclusiveness of a category (e.g., *ragdoll* vs. *mammal*). We argue that more specific words are tied to narrower domains, independently or whether they are concrete or abstract, thus resulting in a diminished degree of contextual variability when compared to generic terms. In this study, we used distributional models to investigate the interplay between contextual variability, concreteness, specificity, and their interaction. Analyzing 676 English nouns, we found that contextual variability is explained by both concreteness and specificity: more specific words have closer contexts, while generic words, whether abstract or concrete, exhibit less related contexts.
%U https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.1377
%P 15854-15860
Markdown (Informal)
[The Contextual Variability of English Nouns: The Impact of Categorical Specificity beyond Conceptual Concreteness](https://aclanthology.org/2024.lrec-main.1377) (Rambelli & Bolognesi, LREC-COLING 2024)
ACL