Concepts and feature spaces are two different
approaches to the formal representation of meaning,
the former focusing on qualitative information while the latter is essentially quantitative.
Well-known examples of feature spaces are metric vector spaces, e.g. the 'word space'
of distributional semantics or Gärdenfors' conceptual spaces.
More general topological spaces,
in particular closure spaces, combine qualitative and quantitative aspects of information.
In such spaces, concepts with fuzzy borders can be defined based on similarity.
In the workshop we will discuss the question how qualitative and quantitative
approaches (based on metric and non-metric spaces) relate to each other.
14.00 - 16.00 : Introduction, statements of the groups (Stefan Evert, Helmar Gust, Carla Umbach, seminar participants)
16.00 - 18.00 : Event structure, conceptual spaces and the semantics of verbs (Peter Gärdenfors, University of Lund)
09.00 - 10.30 : Vagueness and typicality in geometric models of meaning (Reinhard Blutner, University of Amsterdam)
10.30 - 12.00 : Representing meaning with distributional features: the Distributional Memory framework (Alessandro Lenci, University of Pisa)
13.00 - 14.30 : The Qualitative Space (Klaus Robering, University of Kolding)
14.30 - 16.00 : General discussion, questions by the student groups (seminar participants)
The workshop is part of the research seminar 'Concepts and Feature Spaces' in the summer term 2011, and is organized by Stefan Evert, Helmar Gust, and Carla Umbach.
Place: Institute of Cognitive Science, Albrechtstrasse 28, 49076 Osnabrueck
Building 31, room 423
(cf. http://cogsci.uni-osnabrueck.de/~CL/contact)
Contact: carla.umbach@uos.de