SFB 991:  The Structure of Representations in Language, Cognition and Science

• Subject Area: Humanities ; Medicine ; Social and Behavioural Sciences
• Term: from 2011 to 2020
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 192776181

• Final Report Year: 2021

Final Report Abstract

CRC 991 was a coordinated interdisciplinary research initiative that investigated the structure of representations in language, cognition, and science. It united research in linguistics (lexical and compositional semantics, morphology, phonology, syntax, discourse, theory of grammar, linguistic typology, psycholinguistics, computational linguistics, and mathematical linguistics) with neuroscience, psychiatry, psychology, philosophy of mind, philosophy of science, philosophy of language, and the history of philosophy. The starting point was the hypothesis that there is a uniform structure of representations underlying the neural level, the cognitive level, the level of linguistic concepts and the level of institutionalized conceptions such as those used in science. This uniform structure is “frames”, where the CRC's notion of frames was inspired by the work of the cognitive psychologist L. W. Barsalou. Starting from this “frame hypothesis” the CRC aimed at a general theory of concepts and developed a formal frame model in which the notoriously vague notion of “frame” received a precise formal definition. The foundations of this theory were laid in the DFG Research Unit 600 “Functional Concepts and Frames” and extended by the CRC in various aspects such as the modelling of dynamic concepts and the treatment of modification, derivation and composition of concepts. An essential characteristic of frames is their potential to describe entities by means of attributes such as FORM, WEIGHT, and TASTE which are assigned unique values such as ‘round’, ‘5 grams’, and ‘salty’. Attribute-value structures defined in this way exhibit a high degree of expressivity: they allow for an arbitrary number of attributes and – because of recursiveness – an arbitrary depth of description so that the value of an attribute can again be an attribute-value structure. Following Barsalou, frames were not only considered as formally adequate but also cognitively plausible structures which are grounded in, and interact with, the sensory-motor system as was experimentally confirmed. Below, the various research topics investigated by the CRC and the most important results that the CRC has achieved are summarized: nominal concepts: exploring the distinction and structure of nominal concepts in language with semantic, typological, psycholinguistic, statistical, and historical approaches and developing frame representations for different nominal concepts; morphologically complex words: modeling the interaction of lexical frames in compounding and the operations on frames in derivational morphology; phonological structure: empirical evidence for a frame-based model of phonological structure and of paradigms in morphophonology; linguistic interfaces: interfacing frame semantics with morphosyntax, information structure and discourse, linking the mental representations of individual cognizers to the public meaning of natural language expressions; frames for eventualities: investigating the structure of frames for states and events including causal components, aspectuality, scalar change along particular dimensions, iterations and progressions of events, events denoted by complex predicates; formal aspects: frames as typed feature structures, logics for frames, quantification, dynamic frames; developing a framework for syntax-triggered frame composition; conceptual operations: modeling type shifts, coercion, polysemy, idiomatic/literal readings; grounding concepts, including linguistic meanings, in the sensory-motor system; modification: complex frame structures and frame composition in adverbial and adjectival modification, frame-based modification and syntactic accessibility; corpus-based investigations: inducing attributes for adjectives, induction of event frames for verbs, distributional evidence for lexical meaning; frames, scientific notions and scientific theories: frame analysis of scientific terminology and scientific theories in the natural sciences (chemistry and physics), criminal law, and psychiatry; frames and uncertainties/weights: investigating frame-based representations of prototypes and models of Bayesian category learning; history of the frame conception: investigating the foundation of the frame conception in philosophy; social cognition: evidence for frame-based representations in social interaction between rats.

Publications

• (2011). Concept types and determination. Journal of Semantics 28(3): 279–333
  Löbner, S.
  
• (2012). Consequences of bi-directionality for semantic change and compounding. In V. Polyakov & V. Solovyev (eds.), Cognitive modeling in linguistics, 23–44. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
  Kimm, N., D. Schulzek & A. Terhalle
  
• (2012). Frame-Semantik: ein Kompendium. Berlin: de Gruyter
  Busse, D.
  
• (2013). An outline of a dynamic theory of frames. In G. Bezhanishvili, S. Löbner, V. Marra, F. Richter (eds.), Proceedings of the 9th International Tbilisi Symposium on Language, Logic and Computation. Lecture Notes in Computer Science, volume 7758, 115–137. Berlin: Springer
  Naumann, R.
  
• (2013). Syntax-driven semantic frame composition in lexicalized tree adjoining grammars. Journal of Language Modelling 1(2): 267–330
  Kallmeyer, L. & R. Osswald
  
• (2014). Evidence for frames from natural language. In T. Gamerschlag, D. Gerland, R. Osswald & W. Petersen (eds.), Frames and concept types. Applications in language and philosophy (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, volume 94), 23–68. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer
  Löbner, S.
  
• (2014). FrameNet, frame structure, and the syntax-semantics interface. In Gamerschlag, T., D. Gerland, R. Osswald & W. Petersen (eds.), Frames and concept types. Applications in language and philosophy (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, volume 94), 125–156. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer
  Osswald, R. & R.D. Van Valin, Jr.
  
• (2014). Frames and concept types. Applications in language and philosophy (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, volume 94). Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer
  Gamerschlag, T., D. Gerland, R. Osswald & W. Petersen (eds.)
  
• (2014). Meaning and grammar of nouns and verbs. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press
  Gerland, D., C. Horn, A. Latrouite & A. Ortmann (eds.)
  
• (2014). Reconstructing scientific theory change by means of frames. In Gamerschlag, T., D. Gerland, R. Osswald & W. Petersen (eds.), Frames and concept types. Applications in language and philosophy (Studies in Linguistics and Philosophy, volume 94), 93–109. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer
  Schurz, G. & I. Votsis
  
• (2014). Statistical analysis of the interaction between word order and definiteness in Polish. In A. Przepiórkowski & M. Ogrodniczuk (eds.), Advances in natural language processing. Proceedings of the 9th International Conference on NLP, PolTAL 2014, 144–150. Berlin, Heidelberg: Springer
  Czardybon, A., O. Hellwig & W. Petersen
  
• (2014). Stative Dimensional Verbs in German. Studies in Language 38(2): 275–334
  Gamerschlag, T.
  
• (2007/2015). Representation of concepts as frames. In J. Skilters, F. Toccafondi & G. Stemberger (eds.), Complex cognition and qualitative science. The Baltic International Yearbook of Cognition, Logic and Communication, Vol. 2, 151–170. Riga: University of Latvia. Commented reprint in Gamerschlag, T., D. Gerland, R. Osswald & W. Petersen (eds.) (2015). Meaning, frames, and conceptual representation. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press, 43–67
  Petersen, W.
  
• (2015). Applying frame theory to psychiatric classification. In Gamerschlag, T., D. Gerland, R. Osswald & W. Petersen (eds.), Meaning, frames, and conceptual representation, 311–331. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press
  Zielasek, J., G. Vosgerau, W. Gaebel, K. Fauerbach, I. Girgin, S. Jungbluth, J. Weiland & S. Löbner
  
• (2015). Meaning, frames, and conceptual representation. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press
  Gamerschlag, T., D. Gerland, R. Osswald & W. Petersen (eds.)
  
• (2019). The explanatory role of concepts. Erkenntnis
  Taylor, S. & G. Vosgerau
  
• (2016). Same syntax, different semantics: A compositional approach to idiomaticity in multi-word expressions. In C. Piñón (ed.), Empirical issues in syntax and semantics 11, 111–140. Paris: CSSP
  Lichte, T. & L. Kallmeyer
  
• (2017) Individuation, reliability and the mass/count distinction. Journal of Language Modelling 5(2): 303–356
  Sutton, P. & H. Filip
  
• (2017). Can affordances explain behavior? Review of Philosophy and Psychology 8(2): 295–315
  Tillas, A., G. Vosgerau, T. Seuchter, & S. Zipoli Caiani
  
• (2017). Frame theory with first-order comparators: Modeling the lexical meaning of punctual verbs of change with frames. In H.H. Hansen, S. E. Murray, M. Sadrzadeh & H. Zeevat (eds.), Proceedings of the 11th International Tbilisi Symposium on Language, Logic and Computation, 98–117. Berlin: Springer
  Löbner, S.
  
• (2018). A frame-semantic approach to polysemy in affixation. In O. Bonami, G. Boyé, G. Dal, H. Giraudo & F. Namer (eds.), The lexeme in descriptive and theoretical morphology. Empirically oriented theoretical morphology and syntax, 467–486. Berlin: Language Science Press
  Plag, I., M. Andreou & L. Kawaletz
  
• (2018). Analyzing theories in the frame model. Erkenntnis 85(6): 1313–1346
  Kornmesser, S. & G. Schurz
  
• (2018). Bedeutungs- und Begriffswissen im Recht: Frame-Analyse von Rechtsbegriffen im Deutschen. (Series Sprache und Wissen, volume 34) Berlin: de Gruyter
  Busse, D., M. Felden & D. Wulf
  
• (2018). Coarse lexical frame acquisition at the syntaxsemantics interface using a latent-variable PCFG model. In Proceedings of the seventh joint conference on lexical and computational semantics *SEM 2018, 130–141
  Kallmeyer, L., B. QasemiZadeh & J.C. Cheung
  
• (2018). Connecting the typology and semantics of nominal possession: Alienability and the semantics-morphology interface. Morphology 28: 99–144
  Ortmann, A.
  
• (2018). Frames and the Ontology of Particular Objects. dialectica 72(3): 385–409
  Hommen, D.
  
• (2018). Frames interdisziplinär: Modelle, Anwendungsfelder, Methoden. Düsseldorf: Düsseldorf University Press
  Ziem, A., L. Inderelst & D. Wulf (eds.)
  
• (2018). Hitting playfully, but hard. Conceptual effects of verb-adverb modification in the domain of force. PhD dissertation. Utrecht: LOT Publications
  Goldschmidt, A.
  
• (2018). Paradigms in the mental lexicon: Evidence from German. Frontiers in Communication 3: 1–12
  Van de Vijver, R. & D. Baer-Henney
  
• (2018). Roles and the compositional semantics of role-denoting relational adjectives. In U. Sauerland & S. Solt (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, volume 2 of ZASPiL 61, 91–108. ZAS, Berlin
  Anderson, C. & S. Löbner
  
• (2018). Underspecied changes: A dynamic, probabilistic frame theory for verbs. In U. Sauerland & S. Solt (eds.), Proceedings of Sinn und Bedeutung 22, volume 2 of ZASPiL 61, 181–198. ZAS, Berlin
  Naumann, R., W. Petersen & T. Gamerschlag
  
• (2019). A Frame Approach to German Nominal Word Formation. PhD dissertation Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
  Schulzek, D.
  
• (2019). Action verb processing specifically modulates motor behavior and sensorimotor neuronal oscillations. Scientific Reports 9: 15985
  Klepp, A., H. van Dijk, V. Niccolai, A. Schnitzler & K. Biermann-Ruben
  
• (2019). Electrophysiological correlates of concept type shifts. PLoS ONE 14(3): e0212624
  Bekemeier, N., D. Brenner, A. Klepp, K. Biermann-Ruben & P. Indefrey
  
• (2019). The time course of colour congruency effects in picture naming. Acta Psychologica 196: 96–108
  Redmann, A., I. Fitz Patrick & P. Indefrey
  
• (2020). Additive particle uses in Hungarian. A Role and Reference Grammar account. Studies in Language
  Balogh, K.
  
• (2020). The modifier effect: Rational inference or subconscious pragmatics? Cognitive Science 44(2): e12815
  Strößner, C. & G. Schurz