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  Quantifying semantic similarity across languages

Thompson, B., Roberts, S., & Lupyan, G. (2018). Quantifying semantic similarity across languages. In C. Kalish, M. Rau, J. Zhu, & T. T. Rogers (Eds.), Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2018) (pp. 2551-2556). Austin, TX: Cognitive Science Society.

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Item Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0001-BEA5-F Version Permalink: https://hdl.handle.net/21.11116/0000-0003-BEB6-A
Genre: Conference Paper

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http://mindmodeling.org/cogsci2018/papers/0488/0488.pdf (Publisher version)
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 Creators:
Thompson, Bill1, Author           
Roberts, Sean2, Author
Lupyan, Gary3, Author
Affiliations:
1Language and Cognition Department, MPI for Psycholinguistics, Max Planck Society, ou_792548              
2Department of Archeology and Anthropology, University of Bristol, Bristol, UK, ou_persistent22              
3Department of Psychology, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI, USA, ou_persistent22              

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 Abstract: Do all languages convey semantic knowledge in the same way? If language simply mirrors the structure of the world, the answer should be a qualified “yes”. If, however, languages impose structure as much as reflecting it, then even ostensibly the “same” word in different languages may mean quite different things. We provide a first pass at a large-scale quantification of cross-linguistic semantic alignment of approximately 1000 meanings in 55 languages. We find that the translation equivalents in some domains (e.g., Time, Quantity, and Kinship) exhibit high alignment across languages while the structure of other domains (e.g., Politics, Food, Emotions, and Animals) exhibits substantial cross-linguistic variability. Our measure of semantic alignment correlates with known phylogenetic distances between languages: more phylogenetically distant languages have less semantic alignment. We also find semantic alignment to correlate with cultural distances between societies speaking the languages, suggesting a rich co-adaptation of language and culture even in domains of experience that appear most constrained by the natural world

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Language(s): eng - English
 Dates: 2018-07
 Publication Status: Published online
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 Rev. Type: Peer
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Title: the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2018)
Place of Event: Madison, WI, USA
Start-/End Date: 2018-07-25 - 2017-07-28

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Title: Proceedings of the 40th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society (CogSci 2018)
Source Genre: Proceedings
 Creator(s):
Kalish, Charles, Editor
Rau, Martina, Editor
Zhu, Jerry, Editor
Rogers, Timothy T., Editor
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Publ. Info: Austin, TX : Cognitive Science Society
Pages: - Volume / Issue: - Sequence Number: - Start / End Page: 2551 - 2556 Identifier: ISBN: 978-0-9911967-8-4