Colexification Networks Encode Affective Meaning.

ABSTRACT: Colexification is a linguistic phenomenon that occurs when multiple concepts are expressed in a language with the same word. Colexification patterns are frequently used to estimate the meaning similarity between words, but the hypothesis that these are related is still missing direct empirical validation at scale. Here, we show for the first time that words linked by colexification patterns capture similar affective meanings. Using pre-existing translation data, we extend colexification databases to cover much longer word lists. We achieve this with an unsupervised method of affective lexicon extension that uses colexification network data to interpolate the affective ratings of words that are not included in the original lexicon. We find positive correlations between network-based estimat

SUBMITTER: Di Natale A 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC9382918 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature