Martin L. Jönsson

On Prototypes as Defaults (Comment on Connolly, Fodor, Gleitman and Gleitman, 2007)

In an interesting contribution to research on conceptual combination, Connolly, Fodor, Gleitman, and Gleitman (2007) (CFGG) tested a hypothesis that they identified as a common assumption of prototype models of conceptual combination, ‘the crucial default to the stereotype prediction’ (DS). Defaulting to the stereotype consists in assuming, barring information to the contrary, that the prototype corresponding to an adjective noun combination (AN), fully inherits the properties of the prototype corresponding to the noun (N) of that combination. For instance, the prototype corresponding to uncomfortable sofa should share all the properties of the sofa prototype, except for those properties that have to do with comfort. In contradiction of this hypothesis, they reported an experiment in which people’s willingness to accept that a property is true of the members of some class tended to be lower when the concept was modified (uncomfortable sofas have backrests) than when it was unmodified (sofas have backrests). According to CFGG, since all prototype models of conceptual combination require DS to be true, the empirical demonstration that DS fails should be taken as important evidence against the correctness of such models.

The modifier effect in within-category induction: Default inheritance in complex noun phrases

Within-category induction is the projection of a generic property from a class (Apples are sweet) to a subtype of that class (Chinese apples are sweet). The modifier effect refers to the discovery reported by Connolly et al., that the subtype statement tends to be judged less likely to be true than the original unmodified sentence. The effect was replicated and shown to be moderated by the typicality of the modifier (Experiment 1). Likelihood judgements were also found to correlate between modified and unmodified versions of sentences. Experiment 2 elicited justifications, which suggested three types of reason for the effect—pragmatics, knowledge-based reasoning, and uncertainty about attribute inheritance. It is argued that the results provide clear evidence for the default inheritance of prototypical attributes in modified concepts, although a full account of the effect remains to be given.

Linguistic convergence in verbs for belief-forming processes

This paper has two goals. First, it aims to investigate the empirical assumptions of a recent proposal due to Olsson (forthcoming), according to which the generality problem for process-reliabilism can be approached by recruiting patterns and models from the basic-level research in cognitive psychology. Second, the paper attempts to generalize findings in the basic-level literature pertaining to concrete nouns to the abstract verbs that denote belief-forming processes. I will demonstrate that verbs for belief-forming processes exhibit the kind of linguistic convergence that is characteristic of basic-level words, although these words are not neatly taxonomically organized or associated with large feature sets. Next, I will evaluate and partially validate Olssons proposal in light of these findings. I will provide some discussion of possible explanations of the results are discussed, as well as the impact these results have for structural models of basic-level advantage, and for the feasibility of the explanatory strategy that these models presuppose. Finally, I will conclude that even though no particular model is compromised by these results, they call into question the underlying explanatory strategy by highlighting its parochial nature.

Semantic holism and language learning

Holistic theories of meaning have, at least since Dummett’s Frege: The Philosophy of language, been assumed to be problematic from the perspective of the incremental nature of natural language learning. In this essay I argue that the general relationship between holism and language learning is in fact the opposite of that claimed by Dummett. It is only given a particular form of language learning, and a particular form of holism, that there is a problem at all; in general, for all forms of holism, and irrespective of how language learning is understood, semantic holism is conducive to language learning. The paper has three main parts. In the first, I demonstrate with the use of a simple formal system, that the form of holism that generates the problem that Dummett draws attention to is really decomposable into three distinct components, each of which is necessary for the problem to arise. In the second part, I demonstrate that even Dummett’s strong form of holism is compatible with one natural way in which to understand the incremental nature of language learning. In the third part, I outline the reasons why all forms of holism are conducive to language learning and offer two ways in which this general fact can be spelled out precisely. I end the paper by addressing some possible objections, and in doing so I draw attention to some affinities between semantic holism and the principle of compositionality, a semantic principle which has long been assumed to be conducive to language learning.

Overextension in Verb Conjunctions

Hampton (1988) discovered that people are subject to overextension-they categorize some things as falling under a conjunction (e.g., they categorize chess as a sport which is also a game) but not as falling under both of the corresponding conjuncts (e.g., they do not categorize chess as a sport). Although subsequent literature has replicated this effect with a wider range of constructions than those originally used by Hampton, the research so far has been exclusively concerned with various forms of noun compounds. This article generalizes the previous findings to the domain of verb conjunctions. By using a novel paradigm for studying overextension effects, this study demonstrates a very strong overextension effect for conjunctions of gerunds (e.g., walking and smoking). The author discusses the implications of the new findings for available explanations of overextension.

Shogenji’s measure of justification and the inverse conjunction fallacy

This paper takes issue with a recent proposal due to Shogenji (Synthese 184:29–48, 2012). In his paper, Shogenji introduces J, a normatively motivated formal measure of justification (and of confirmation), and then proceeds to recruit it descriptively in an explanation of the conjunction fallacy. We argue that this explanation is undermined by the fact that it cannot be extended in any natural way to the inverse conjunction fallacy, a more recently discovered, closely related fallacy. We point out that since the inverse conjunction fallacy occurs in the absence of any form of explicit evidence, formal measures of confirmation such as J, are hard pressed to apply to it at all. We then proceed to argue that this problem with Shogenji’s measure is actually quite difficult to come to terms with; even if the situations where people commit the inverse conjunction fallacy are understood in such a way that the measure is applicable, it doesn’t seem possible to reasonably interpret these situations in such a way that the measure can explain the found response pattern.

A unified account of the conjunction fallacy by coherence

We propose a coherence account of the conjunction fallacy applicable to both of its two paradigms (the M–A paradigm and the A–B paradigm). We compare our account with a recent proposal by Tentori et al. (J Exp Psychol Gen 142(1): 235–255, 2013) that attempts to generalize earlier confirmation accounts. Their model works better than its predecessors in some respects, but it exhibits only a shallow form of generality and is unsatisfactory in other ways as well: it is strained, complex, and untestable as it stands. Our coherence account inherits the strength of the confirmation account, but in addition to being applicable to both paradigms, it is natural, simple, and readily testable. It thus constitutes the next natural step for Bayesian theorizing about the conjunction fallacy.

Interpersonal Sameness of Meaning for Inferential Role Semantics

Inferential Role Semantics is often criticized for being incompatible with the platitude that words of different speakers can mean the same thing. While many assume that this platitude can be accommodated by understanding sameness of meaning in terms of similarity of meaning, no worked out proposal has ever been produced for Inferential Role Semantics. I rectify this important omission by giving a detailed structural account of meaning similarity in terms of graph theory. I go on to argue that this account has a number of attractive features, prominent among them that it makes sameness of meaning probabilistically determine co-reference.