INSPIRE: The underpinnings of Semantic change: A Linguistic, Cognitive, and Information-Theoretic Investigation

该INSPIRE奖部分由计算机信息科学工程局（CISE/CCF）计算和通信基础部门的通信和信息基础计划以及社会行为经济科学局（SBE/BCS）行为和认知科学部门的语言学计划资助。但我们对这种系统性变化的认知和交际基础却缺乏具体的了解。本研究的核心是两个问题：（1）语义变化的约束性和自主性是否源于神经认知系统的组织特性？ B）这种变化的驱动和实施，究竟有多精确，是植根于理性沟通的动力学？ 通过同时从语言结构、概念结构、脑功能结构和交际结构的角度来解决这些问题，研究者希望发展一个有认知基础的、实验可行的、数学上知情的语义变化理论。认知和交流：（a）处所表达历时演变为表示拥有，最终演变为与格标记的路径;（B）系动词或连接动词从姿势动词产生的路径（例如，（a）在财产归属方面，应将财产的偶然/临时归属与基本/永久归属加以区分，并在稍后阶段将这两种归属加以概括。一方面，通过实验研究这些语义概念的处理和神经方面，该团队将探索语言和认知之间的接口-特别是与概念系统的基于感知和非基于感知的维度的连接。这些结果将有助于更好地理解组织概念系统基础设施的认知通路，特别是前额叶皮层。另一方面，从正式语言学模型、语义变化现象和认知心理学中获得的见解将与工程学和统计学的思想相结合，至少制定语义信息的概率理论的开端，该理论模拟了语言话语中的信息如何交换。正如所设想的那样，该项目有望在两个层面上产生更广泛的影响：首先，它将解放传统上局限于语言学一个小分支的现象，并将它们转化为研究它们产生的基本机制的工具，使它们与认知科学，神经科学和信息理论相关。它还将为真实的语言的丰富（但相对混乱）的经验事实和抽象的交流理论之间的可能综合开辟直接渠道，为语义信息理论铺平道路。其次，它将提供一个更清晰的理解认知途径如何引导语言的演变，在语言学上的典型（即，神经认知健康）人群。这反过来又对语言非典型人群的研究产生了直接影响。在这两种方式中，该项目将重新定义语言学，信息论，认知科学和神经科学之间的界限，并导致研究语义，认知和信息的新方法。这项研究还将导致一种新的教育和研究方法的建立：从信息理论和神经认知的角度研究语言变化。

This INSPIRE award is partially funded by the Communication and Information Foundations Program of the Computing and Communications Foundations Division in the Directorate for Computer & Information Science & Engineering (CISE/CCF) and the Linguistics Program of the Behavioral and Cognitive Sciences Division in the Directorate for Social, Behavioral & Economic Sciences (SBE/BCS).It is a well-established fact that meanings associated with linguistic expressions evolve in systematic ways across time. But we have little concrete understanding of the cognitive and communicative basis of such systematic change. Central to the proposed research are two questions: a) Does the constrained and trajectorial nature of semantic change derive from the organizational properties of the neurocognitive system? b) How precisely is the actuation and the implementation of instances of such changes rooted in the dynamics of rational communication? By simultaneously addressing these questions from the perspectives of linguistic structure, conceptual structure, brain-functional structure, and communication structure, the investigators hope to develop a cognitively grounded, experimentally viable, and mathematically informed theory of semantic change.Two cross-linguistically well-attested paths of change have been identified as being especially relevant in probing the potential connections between language, cognition and communication: (a) the path whereby locative expressions diachronically evolve to express possession, ultimately evolving into dative case markers; (b) the path whereby copulas or linking verbs arise from posture verbs (e.g., sit, stand) to encode the distinction between incidental/temporary and essential/permanent attribution of properties, generalizing at a later stage to encode both types of attribution. On the one hand, by experimentally studying the processing and neurological aspects of these semantic notions, the team will probe the interface between language and cognition -- specifically the connection to percept-based and non-percept-based dimensions of the conceptual system. These results will facilitate a better understanding of the cognitive pathways that organize the infrastructure of the conceptual system, particularly the prefrontal cortex. On the other hand, insights obtained from formal linguistic models, semantic change phenomena, and cognitive psychology, will be combined with ideas from engineering and statistics to formulate at least the beginnings of a probabilistic theory of semantic information, which models how information is exchanged in linguistic discourse.As envisaged, this project promises to have broader impact at two levels: First, it will liberate phenomena conventionally restricted to one small subfield in Linguistics and transform them into tools for investigating the fundamental mechanisms from which they emerge, making them relevant for Cognitive Science, Neuroscience, and Information Theory. It will also open up direct channels for a possible synthesis between the rich (but relatively messy) empirical facts of real language and abstract theories of communication, paving a path towards a Semantic Information Theory. Second, it will afford a cleaner understanding of how cognitive pathways guide the evolution of language in the linguistically typical (i.e., neurocognitively healthy) population. This, in turn, has direct implications for research on linguistically atypical populations. In both these ways, the project will redefine the boundaries between linguistics, information theory, cognitive science, and neuroscience and lead to new methodologies for studying semantics, cognition and information. The proposed research will also lead to the creation of a novel educational and research approach: the study of language change from an information-theoretic and neurocognitive perspective.