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Representing part-whole relations in conceptual space

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Author

Summary, in English

In this paper, we propose a cognitive semantic approach to represent part–whole relations. We base our proposal on the theory of conceptual spaces, focusing on prototypical structures in part–whole relations. Prototypical structures are not accounted for in traditional mereological formalisms. In our account, parts and wholes are represented in distinct conceptual spaces; parts are joined to form wholes in a structure space. The structure space allows systematic similarity judgments between wholes, taking into consideration shared parts and their configurations. A point in the structure space denotes a particular part structure; regions in the space represent different general types of part structures. We argue that the structural space can represent prototype effects: structural types are formed around typical arrangements of parts. We also show how structure space captures the variations in part structure of a given concept across different domains. In addition, we discuss how some taxonomies of part–whole relations can be understood within our framework.

Department/s

Publishing year

2014

Language

English

Pages

127-142

Publication/Series

Cognitive Processing

Volume

15

Issue

2

Document type

Journal article

Publisher

Springer

Topic

  • General Language Studies and Linguistics
  • Learning

Status

Published

Project

  • Thinking in Time: Cognition, Communication and Learning

Research group

  • Lund University Cognitive Science (LUCS)

ISBN/ISSN/Other

  • ISSN: 1612-4782