Cover not available

Article published In: Computational Construction Grammar and Constructional Change
Edited by Katrien Beuls and Remi van Trijp
[Belgian Journal of Linguistics 30] 2016
► pp. 265–286

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload PDF
authorization required

Why are embodied experiments relevant to cognitive linguistics?

 | Universidad de Murcia, Spain
 | Universidad de Barcelona, Spain
 | Universidad Autónoma de Barcelona, Spain
Published online: 10 January 2017
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/bjl.30.12val
Computational simulation models of cognitive linguistics are relatively scarce (cf Valenzuela, 2010). This is due, among other things, to the inherent complexity of the movement’s conception of language. Cognitive linguistics places great emphasis on the integration of language with sensorimotor and conceptual structure, as well as on the embodied nature of cognition and the perspective of language as a social construct. This has made it difficult for cognitive linguistics to take advantage of the benefits of computational simulation (cf McClelland 2009).
The robotic paradigm of Luc Steels (Steels 1998, 2000, 2004, 2005) offers one of the most complete implementations of cognitive linguistics to date. In this paradigm, autonomous robotic agents play communication games in which linguistic information is represented by a version of construction grammar called “Fluid Construction Grammar”. The present chapter explains how this simulation is a true implementation of the theoretical proposals made by cognitive linguistics. More specifically, we show how these proposals have been operationalized for their use in the system.
Computational simulations like the one described here should be of great interest to any cognitive linguist. They provide an excellent testing ground for any theoretical proposal, bringing cognitive linguistics even closer to the cognitive-science enterprise.
References (73)
Amant, Robert St., Clayton Morrison, Yu-Han Chang, Paul Cohen, and Carole Beal. 2006. “An Image Schema Language.” In Proceedings of the 7th International Conference on Cognitive Modelling (ICCM 2006), 292–297.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Baker, Christopher F., Charles J. Fillmore, and John B. Lowe. 1998. “The Berkeley FrameNet project.” In Proceedings of the 17th International Conference on Computational Linguistics, 86–90. Morristown, NJ: Association for Computational Linguistics. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barlow, Michael, and Kemmer, Suzanne. 2000. Usage-Based Models of Language. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergen, Benjamin K., and Nancy Chang. 2005. “Embodied Construction Grammar in Simulation-based Language Understanding.” In Construction Grammar(s): Cognitive Grounding and Theoretical Extensions, ed. by Jan-Ola Östman, and Mirjam Fried, 147–190. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boas, Hans C. 2001. “Frame Semantics as a Framework for Describing Polysemy and Syntactic Structures of English and German Motion Verbs in Contrastive Computational Lexicography.” In Proceedings of the Corpus Linguistics 2001 conference, ed. by Paul Rayson, Andrew Wilson, Tony McEnery, Andrew Hardie, and Shereen Khoja, 64–73. Lancaster: University Centre for Computer Corpus Research on Language.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2005. “Semantic Frames as Interlingual Representations for Multilingual Lexical Databases.” International Journal of Lexicography 18 (4): 445–478. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bowerman, Margaret, and Sonja Choi. 2001. “Shaping Meanings for Language: Universal and Language-specific in the Acquisition of Semantic Categories.” In Language Acquisition and Conceptual Development, ed. by Melissa Bowerman, and Stephen C. Levinson, 475–511. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. “Space under Construction: Language-specific Spatial Categorization in First Language Acquisition.” In Language in Mind: Advances in the Study of Language and Thought, ed. by Dedre Gentner, and Susan Goldin-Meadow, 387–427. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Chang, Nancy, Srini Narayanan, and Miriam R. L. Petruck. 2002. “From Frames to Inference.” In Proceedings of the First International Workshop on Scalable Natural Language Understanding, 478–484. Heidelberg: International Committee on Computational Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Copestake, Ann. 2002. Implementing Typed Feature Structure Grammars. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Coventry, Kenny. R., Mercè Prat-Sala, and Lynn Richards. 2001. “The Interplay between Geometry and Function in the Comprehension of Over, Under, Above and Below .” Journal of Memory and Language 441: 376–398. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, William. 2001. Radical Construction Grammar: Syntactic Theory in Typological Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Croft, William, and D. Alan Cruse. 2004. Cognitive Linguistics. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dik, Simon. 1992. Functional Grammar in Prolog: An Integrated Implementation for English, French, and Dutch. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ellis, Nick, and Diane Larsen-Freeman (eds). 2009. Language as a Complex Adaptive System. Chichester: Wiley-Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Elman, Jeffrey L., and Mary L. Hare. 1997. Single Mechanism = Single Representation. Hillsdale, NJ: Erlbaum.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fillmore, Charles J. 1985. “Frames and the Semantics of Understanding.” Quaderni di Semantica 61: 222–254.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk 2006. “Methodology in Cognitive Linguistics.” In Cognitive Linguistics: Current Applications and Future Perspectives, ed. by Gitte Kristiansen, Michel Achard, René Dirven, and Francisco Ruiz de Mendoza Ibáñez, 21–49. Berlin: Mouton De Gruyter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Geeraerts, Dirk, Stefan Grondelaers, and Peter Bakema. 1994. The Structure of Lexical Variation: Meaning, naming, and context. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gerasymova, Kateryna, Luc Steels, and Remi van Trijp. 2009. “Aspectual Morphology of Russian Verbs in Fluid Construction Grammar.” In Proceedings of the 31th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. by N. A. Taatgen, and H. van Rijn, 1370–1375. Austin: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gibson, Edward, and Evelina Fedorenko. 2010. “Weak quantitative standards in linguistics research.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences, 141: 233–234. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gonzalez-Marquez, Monica, Irene Mittelberg, Seana Coulson, and Michael J. Spivey (eds). 2007. Methods in Cognitive Linguistics. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gopnik, Myma, and Martha Crago. 1991. “Familial Aggregation of a Developmental Language Disorder.” Cognition 391: 1–50. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Harnad, Stephen. 1990. “The Symbol Grounding Problem.” Physica D 421: 335–346. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hartmann, Stephan. 2005. “The World as a Process: Simulations in the Natural and Social Sciences.” In: Modelling and Simulation in the Social Sciences from the Philosophy of Science Point of View, ed. by R. Hegselmann et al., 77–100. Dordrecht: Kluwer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ibarretxe-Antuñano, Iraide, and Javier Valenzuela. 2010. “Language as a Complex System: A View from Cognitive Linguistics.” In Language as a Complex System: Interdisciplinary Challenges, ed. by Gemma Bel-Enguix, and M. Dolores Jiménez López, 3–38. Newcastle: Cambridge Scholar Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jaeger, Jeri J., Alan H. Lockwood, David L. Kemmerer, Robert D. Van Valin, Vrian W. Murphy, and Hanif G. Khalak. 1996. “A Positron Emission Tomographic Study of Regular and Irregular Verb Morphology in English.” Language 721: 451–497. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Janda, Laura A. 2004. “A Metaphor in Search of a Source Domain: The Categories of Slavic Aspect.” Cognitive Linguistics 151: 471–527. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2008. “Semantic Motivations for Aspectual Clusters of Russian Verbs.” In American Contributions to the 14th International Congress of Slavists, Ohrid, September 2008, ed. by Christina Y. Bethin, 181–196. Bloomington: Slavica Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Joanisse, Mark F., and Mark S. Seidenberg. 1999. “Impairments in Verb Morphology after Brain Injury: A Connectionist Model.” Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA 961: 7592–7597. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, Mark. 1987. The Body in the Mind: The Bodily Basis of Meaning, Imagination, and Reason. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kay, Paul, and Charles J. Fillmore. 1999. “Grammatical Constructions and Linguistic Generalizations: The What's X Doing Y? construction.” Language 751: 1–33. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George. 1987. Women, Fire, and Dangerous Things: What Categories Reveal About the Mind. Chicago: University of Chicago Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lakoff, George, and Mark Johnson. 1999. Philosophy in the Flesh: The Embodied Mind and its Challenge to Western Thought. New York: Basic Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Langacker, Ronald W. 1987. Foundations of Cognitive Grammar. Volume 1: Theoretical Prerequisites. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lecomte, Alain. 2003. “A Computational Approach to Minimalism.” In Proceedings of ICON-2003, International Conference on Natural Language, 20–31. Mysore: Central Institute of Indian Languages.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lemmens, Maarten. 2002. “The Semantic Network of Dutch Posture Verbs.” In The Linguistics of Sitting, Standing and Lying, ed. by John Newman (Ed.), 103–139. Amsterdam & Philadelphia: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Loetzsch, Martin, Remi van Trijp, and Luc Steels. 2008. “Typological and Computational Investigations of Spatial Perspective.” In Modeling Communication for Robots and Virtual Humans, ed. by Ipke Wachsmuth, and Günther Knoblich, 125–142. Berlin: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mandler, Jean M. 1992. “How to Build a Baby II: Conceptual Primitives.” Psychological Review 991: 587–604. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2010. “The Spatial Foundations of the Conceptual System.” Language and Cognition 21: 21–44. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Majid, Asifa, Melissa Bowerman, Sotaro Kita, Daniel Haun, and Stephen C. Levinson. 2004. “Can Language Restructure Cognition? The Case for Space.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 81: 108–114. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Matthiessen, Christian M.I.M., and John A. Bateman. 1991. Text Generation and Systemic-Functional Linguistics: Experiences from English and Japanese. London: Pinter Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McClelland, James L. 2009. “The Place of Modeling in Cognitive Science.” Topics in Cognitive Science 11: 11–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Micelli, Vanessa, Remi van Trijp, and Joachim De Beule. 2009. “Framing Fluid Construction Grammar.” In Proceedings of the 31th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. by N. A. Taatgen, and H. van Rijn, 3023–3027. Austin: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Micelli, Vanessa, and Remi van Trijp. Submitted. “Information Structure in Grounded Embodied Agents.”
Michaelis, Laura. 2013. “Sign-based Construction Grammar.” In The Oxford Handbook of Construction Grammar, ed. by Thomas Hoffman, and Graeme Trousdale, 133–152. New York: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Piaget, Jean. 1954. The Construction of Reality in the Child. Translated by Margaret Cook. New York: Basic Books. Originally appeared as Piaget 1937, La construction du réel chez l'enfant. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pinker, Steven, and Alan Prince. 1988. “On Language and Connectionism: Analysis of a Parallel Distributed Processing Model of Language Acquisition.” Cognition 281: 73–193. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Plunkett, Kim, and Virginia Marchman. 1993. “From Rote Learning to System Building – Acquiring Verb Morphology in Children and Connectionist Nets.” Cognition 481: 21–69. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rager, John, and George Berg. 1992. “A Connectionist Model of Motion and Government on Chomsky's Government-binding Theory.” Connection Science 21: 35–52. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Regier, Terry. 1996. The Human Semantic Potential. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rumelhart, David, and James McClelland. 1986. “On Learning the Past Tenses of English Verbs: Implicit Rules or Parallel Distributed Processing?” In Parallel Distributed Processing: Explorations in the Microstructure of Cognition, ed. by James McClelland, David Rumelhart, and the PDP Research Group, 216–271. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Seidenberg, Mark S., and James H. Hoeffner. 1998. “Evaluating Behavioral and Neuroimaging Data on Past Tense Processing.” Language 741: 104–122. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Shieber, Stuart M. 1986. An Introduction to Unification-Based Approaches to Grammar. Volume 41. Stanford, CA: CSLI Publications.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Siskind, Jeffrey M. 2001. “Grounding the Lexical Semantics of Verbs in Visual Perception Using Force Dynamics and Event Logic.” Journal of Artificial Intelligence Research (JAIR) 151: 31–90. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Linda B., and Esther Thelen. 2003. “Development as a Dynamic System.” Trends in Cognitive Sciences 71: 343–348. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Speelman, Dirk, Stefan Grondelaers, and Dirk Geeraerts. 2003. “Profile-based Linguistic Uniformity as a Generic Method for Comparing Language Varieties.” Computers and the Humanities 371: 317–337. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Spranger, Michael, and Martin Loetzsch. 2009. “The Semantics of SIT, STAND, and LIE Embodied in Robots.” In Proceedings of the 31th Annual Conference of the Cognitive Science Society, ed. by N. A. Taatgen, and H. van Rijn, 2546–2552. Austin: Cognitive Science Society.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steels, Luc. 1997. “Synthesising the Origins of Language and Meaning Using Co-evolution, Self-organisation and Level Formation.” In Approaches to the Evolution of Language: Social and Cognitive Bases, ed. by J. Hurford, C. Knight, and M. Studdert-Kennedy, 384–404. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1998. “The Origins of Syntax in Visually Grounded Robotic Agents.” Artificial Intelligence 1031: 133–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2000. “Language as a Complex Adaptive System.” In Parallel Problem Solving from Nature – PPSN-VI, ed. by Marc Schoenauer et al., 17–26. Berlin: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2001. “Language Games for Autonomous Robots.” IEEE Intelligent Systems September/October 2001: 16–22.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Constructivist Development of Grounded Construction Grammars.” In Proceedings of the 42nd Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics, ed. by D. Scott, W. Daelemans, and M. Walker, 9–19. Barcelona: Association for Computational Linguistics.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2005. “The Emergence and Evolution of Linguistic Structure: From Lexical to Grammatical Communication Systems.” Connection Science 171: 213–230. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Steels, Luc, and Tony Belpaeme. 2005. “Coordinating Perceptually Grounded Categories through Language: A Case Study for Colour.” Behavioral and Brain Sciences, 281: 469–489. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Subirats-Rüggeberg, Carlos, and Miriam R. L. Petruck. 2003. “Surprise: Spanish FrameNet!” In Proceedings of the Workshop on Frame Semantics, XVII International Congress of Linguists (CIL), Prague, Czech Republic, ed. by Eva Hajičová et al., CD-ROM. Prague: Matfyzpress.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tomasello, Michael. 2003. Constructing a Language: A Usage-based Theory of Language Acquisition. Harvard: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ullman, Michael T., Suzanne Corkin, Marie Coppola, Gregory Hickok, John H. Growdon, Walter J. Koroshetz, and Steven Pinker. 1997. “A Neural Dissociation within Language: Evidence that the Mental Dictionary is Part of Declarative Memory, and that Grammatical Rules are Processed by the Procedural System.” Journal of Cognitive Neuroscience 91: 266–276. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Valenzuela, Javier. 2010. “Cognitive Linguistics and Computational Modeling.” Textus 131: 763–794.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Trijp, Remi. 2008. Analogy and Multi-Level Selection in the Formation of a Case Grammar. A Case Study in Fluid Construction Grammar. Unpublished Ph.D. dissertation, University of Antwerp.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2010. “Cognitive Mechanisms Need to be Operationalized. Commentary on Sonia Cristofaro: Semantic Maps and Mental Representation.” Linguistic Discovery 8, Issue 1. Special Issue on Semantic Maps: Methods and Applications, edited by Michael Cysouw, Martin Haspelmath and Andrej Malchukov. .Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wellens, Pieter, and Joachim De Beule. 2010. “Priming through Constructional Dependencies: A Case Study in Fluid Construction Grammar.” In The Evolution of Language (EVOLANG8), ed. by Andrew Smith, Marieke Schouwstra, Bart de Boer, and Kenny Smith, 344–351. Singapore: World Scientific. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zeschel, Arne. 2008. “Introduction: Usage-based Models of Language Processing and Representation.” Cognitive Linguistics 191: 345–355. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue