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 //9FDECH
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UID:pretalx-athens-2026-9FDECH@conference-hub.linguistic-society.com
DTSTART:20260422T073000Z
DTEND:20260422T074500Z
DESCRIPTION:Abstract\nCluster concepts apply when\, given a set of conditio
 ns\, examples that maximally satisfy the conditions are\nregarded as more 
 typical than examples that satisfy fewer of the conditions. For example\, 
 climbing involves\ntwo independent conditions: (a) an individual is travel
 ing upward\, and (b) the individual is moving with\neffortful grasping mot
 ions (clambering). On the most likely interpretation (Bill climbed (up) th
 e mountain)\,\nboth conditions are met. On the other hand\, the sentence B
 ill climbed down the mountain violates the first\ncondition and The snake 
 climbed (up) the tree violates the second condition. However\, both exampl
 es are\nacceptable instances of climbing since each one of them fulfills a
 t least one condition. The default\ninterpretation\, in which both conditi
 ons are satisfied\, is judged to be more prototypical climbing\, while the
 \nother acceptable sentences are judged as marginal.\nEven though cluster 
 concepts help define words in this way\, the interaction between cluster c
 oncepts and\nlexical entries has not been explored in detail. The goal of 
 the current paper is to fill this gap and formalize\nthe relationship betw
 een cluster concepts and lexical entries\, arguing that cluster concepts a
 re actually\ninstantiated in lexical entries. It is shown that while clust
 er concepts can be embedded in lexical entries\, at the\nsame time they ca
 n be abstracted away from them. This encoding of cluster concepts in lexic
 al entries is done\nusing structured lexical entries in the style of the S
 lot Structure Model (SSM). The SSM is a constraint-based\nmodel of morphol
 ogy that is based on percolation of both syntactic and semantic features a
 nd on slot\nstructure\, which organizes the information in the lexical ent
 ries of words and affixes. The SSM is partly based\non the dual- route mod
 el of morphology.\nA corpus study in English and Spanish was conducted in 
 order to determine the uses of words whose\nlexical entries may be defined
  through the use of cluster concepts\, and to find out whether their use w
 ith a\nprototypical meaning is more or less frequent than with a non-proto
 typical meaning (that is\, more marginal\nsenses). The results serve as (i
 ndirect) evidence that cluster concepts are instantiated in lexical entrie
 s. The\ncorpus results also serve as a basis to explore the consequences o
 f the proposed analysis for word formation\nand compounding. For example\,
  do words that are used as a base for derivation or as compound constituen
 ts\nusually have the prototypical meaning? For instance\, in climber\, the
  base is the prototypical sense of climb\,\nnot the one that means only cl
 ambering or going up. The same is the case for\, say\, bird watcher\, wher
 e the\nperson doing the watching does not typically observe penguins\, but
  rather prototypical birds such as cardinals\nor robins. Finally\, the pap
 er explores the possibility that the phenomenon of “family resemblance
 ” can be\nexplained by or subsumed under the notion of cluster concepts.
  It is shown\, for example\, that the\nprototypicality of Wittgenstein’s
  classic example\, the word game\, can be explained using only cluster con
 cepts\nencoded in its lexical entry.
DTSTAMP:20260419T080752Z
LOCATION:Main Auditorium
SUMMARY:Cluster Concepts and Structured Lexical Entries - Carlos Benavides
URL:https://conference-hub.linguistic-society.com/athens-2026/talk/9FDECH/
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