On the problem of categorization in linguistics

On the problem of

categorization in linguistics
Rik De Busser
VNU-ULIS, Friday 25 October 2019

• 
  What is categorization?
  
  • 
    Why do we need it?
    
• 
  Problems with categorization in linguistics
  
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  Word classes
  
  • 
    Historical background
    
  • 
    Case studies
    
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  Discussion
  
  • 
    English revisited
    
  • 
    Vietnamese
    

• 
  Classifying object, events, … into categories
  
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  General cognitive process (so not specific to language)
  

• 
  Extremely widespread function that influences many aspects of our daily lives
  
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  Basic survival skill to humans and other living beings
  
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  Crucial in the normal operation of every language
  

Lynx
Feline

Cat

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  What is it that we are actually categorizing?
  
  • 
    What are these conceptual categories?
    
  • 
    What are we categorizing with these categories?
    

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  Categorizing cognitive concepts
  
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  Two levels of analysis:
  
  • 
    Category membership of concepts
    
    • 
      E.g. What is the semantic relationship between different types of birds (‘robin’, ‘lark’, ‘ostrich’) and the general concept ‘bird’
      
  • 
    Assignment of concepts to entities and events
    
    • 
      E.g. In the real world, which animals can be called ‘bird’
      

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  Classical models
  
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  Exemplar-based models
  
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  Prototype models
  

• 
  Probabilistic models
  

1.