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Related Experiment Video

Updated: Dec 20, 2025

The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

The Spatial Memory Game: Testing the Relationship Between Spatial Language, Object Knowledge, and Spatial Cognition

Published on: February 19, 2018

Conceptual relations predict colexification across languages.

Yang Xu¹, Khang Duong², Barbara C Malt³

¹Department of Computer Science, Cognitive Science Program, University of Toronto, Toronto, ON M5S 3G8, Canada.

|May 23, 2020

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Lexical meaning variation across languages, known as colexification, is not random. Frequently colexified meanings across languages are linked to lower cognitive effort and stronger conceptual associations in speakers.

Keywords:

Cognitive economy Colexification Concepts Cross-linguistic variation Lexicon

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Area of Science:

Linguistics
Cognitive Science
Psycholinguistics

Background:

Multiple meanings often share a single word form (colexification) in natural language.
The reasons for varying colexification frequencies across languages are not fully understood.
Existing research on polysemy and word meaning evolution lacks a cognitive basis for cross-linguistic regularities.

Purpose of the Study:

To investigate the non-arbitrary nature of cross-linguistic colexification frequency.
To propose and test the hypothesis that cognitive economy influences colexification patterns.
To link cross-linguistic colexification regularities to fundamental principles of human cognition.

Main Methods:

Examined colexification patterns across approximately 250 languages.
Utilized independent measures of conceptual relatedness from psychological and linguistic resources.
Predicted colexification data based on these measures of cognitive effort and association.

Main Results:

Meanings that are more frequently colexified across languages show stronger associations among English speakers.
Conceptual associativity significantly predicts cross-linguistic colexification frequency.
Findings suggest cognitive principles constrain the development and structure of lexicons.

Conclusions:

Cross-linguistic variation in colexification is driven by cognitive economy, favoring meanings that require less cognitive effort.
Conceptual associativity is a key factor influencing how meanings are bundled into single word forms across languages.
This research grounds cross-linguistic lexical regularities in basic cognitive principles, advancing the study of polysemy and word meaning evolution.