How linguistic meaning harmonizes with information through meaning conservation
This paper aims to characterize the relationship between information as defined in the information-theoretic approach and
linguistic meaning by way of formulation of computations over the lexicon of a natural language. Information in its information theoretic
sense is supposed not to be equivalent to linguistic meaning, whereas linguistic meaning has an intrinsic connection to information as far
as the form and structure of the lexicon of a language (in a non-lexicological sense) is concerned. We argue that these two apparently
conflicting aspects of the relationship between information and linguistic meaning can be unified by showing that information conserves
linguistic meaning, only insofar as computations of a certain kind are defined on the symbolic elements of a lexicon. This has consequences
not merely for the nature of lexical learning – natural or artificial or otherwise – but also for the conservation of information in
axiomatic systems.
Article outline
- 1.Introductory background
- 2.Information, linguistic meaning and computation
- 3.Why the lexicon?
- 4.The principle of linguistic meaning conservation
- 5.Implications
- 6.Conclusion
- Acknowledgements
- Notes
-
References
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