Distributional Semantics and Linguistic Theory
It addresses the limited impact of distributional semantics in theoretical linguistics, promoting cross-fertilization to advance language understanding.
The paper reviews distributional semantics methods and results relevant to theoretical linguistics, focusing on semantic change, polysemy, and the grammar-semantics interface, aiming to bridge computational and theoretical approaches.
Distributional semantics provides multi-dimensional, graded, empirically induced word representations that successfully capture many aspects of meaning in natural languages, as shown in a large body of work in computational linguistics; yet, its impact in theoretical linguistics has so far been limited. This review provides a critical discussion of the literature on distributional semantics, with an emphasis on methods and results that are of relevance for theoretical linguistics, in three areas: semantic change, polysemy and composition, and the grammar-semantics interface (specifically, the interface of semantics with syntax and with derivational morphology). The review aims at fostering greater cross-fertilization of theoretical and computational approaches to language, as a means to advance our collective knowledge of how it works.