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Compositionality in a Parallel Architecture for Language Processing
1Language Acquisition and Language Processing Lab, Department of Language and Literature, Faculty of Humanities, Norwegian University of Science and Technology.
Cognitive Science
|May 21, 2021
Summary
This study challenges traditional views on compositionality in language, suggesting it
Area of Science:
- Cognitive Science
- Psycholinguistics
- Neuroscience
Background:
- Compositionality is a key concept in linguistics and philosophy.
- Its role in cognitive science is growing but remains debated.
Purpose of the Study:
- Reassess the principle of compositionality from psycholinguistic and neuroscientific perspectives.
- Evaluate classic arguments and propose a new competence argument for compositionality.
Main Methods:
- Review of classic arguments for compositionality.
- Development of a new competence-based argument.
- Analysis of cognitive neuroscience findings.
- Proposal of a dual-stream language processing architecture.
Main Results:
- Classic arguments for compositionality are insufficient to establish it as a property of human language.
- A new competence argument is presented, supported by cognitive neuroscience.
- The brain has processing capacities for compositionality.
Conclusions:
- Compositionality may be a constraint on syntax-driven language processing.
- A dual-stream model (syntax-driven and asyntactic) explains semantic representation.
- Human language processing involves both structured and potentially unstructured semantic generation.
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