Article Instance

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{
    "pk": 25833,
    "title": "Semantic chaining and efficient communication: The case of container names",
    "subtitle": null,
    "abstract": "Semantic categories in the world’s languages often reflect a\nhistorical process of chaining: A name for one idea is extended\nto a conceptually related idea, and from there on to other ideas,\nproducing a chain of concepts that all bear the same name.\nThe beginning and end points of such a chain might in prin-\nciple be conceptually rather dissimilar. There is also evidence\nsupporting a contrasting picture: Languages tend to support\nefficient, informative communication, often through semantic\ncategories in which all exemplars are similar. Here, we explore\nthis tension through computational analyses of existing cross-\nlanguage naming and sorting data from the domain of house-\nhold containers. We find: (1) formal evidence for historical se-\nmantic chaining, and (2) evidence that systems of categories in\nthis domain nonetheless support near-optimally efficient com-\nmunication. Our results suggest that semantic chaining may\nbe constrained by the functional need for efficient, informative\ncommunication.",
    "language": "eng",
    "license": {
        "name": "",
        "short_name": "",
        "text": null,
        "url": ""
    },
    "keywords": [
        {
            "word": "semantic variation; artifact categories; semantic\nchaining; historical semantics; semantic universals; efficient\ncommunication"
        }
    ],
    "section": "Papers",
    "is_remote": true,
    "remote_url": "https://escholarship.org/uc/item/5180p3q0",
    "frozenauthors": [
        {
            "first_name": "Yang",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Xu",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of California, Berkeley",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Terry",
            "middle_name": "",
            "last_name": "Regier",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "University of California, Berkeley",
            "department": ""
        },
        {
            "first_name": "Barbara",
            "middle_name": "C",
            "last_name": "Malt",
            "name_suffix": "",
            "institution": "Lehigh University",
            "department": ""
        }
    ],
    "date_submitted": null,
    "date_accepted": null,
    "date_published": "2015-01-01T18:00:00Z",
    "render_galley": null,
    "galleys": [
        {
            "label": "PDF",
            "type": "pdf",
            "path": "https://journalpub.escholarship.org/cognitivesciencesociety/article/25833/galley/15457/download/"
        }
    ]
}