Frames, Fields, and Contrasts

Recently, there has been a surge of interest in the lexicon. The demand for a fuller and more adequate understanding of lexical meaning required by developments in computational linguistics, artificial intelligence, and cognitive science has stimulated a refocused interest in linguistics, psychology, and philosophy. Different disciplines have studied lexical structure from their own vantage points, and because scholars have only intermittently communicated across disciplines, there has been little recognition that there is a common subject matter. The conference on which this volume is based brought together interested thinkers across the disciplines of linguistics, philosophy, psychology, and computer science to exchange ideas, discuss a range of questions and approaches to the topic, consider alternative research strategies and methodologies, and formulate interdisciplinary hypotheses concerning lexical organization. The essay subjects discussed include:

* alternative and complementary conceptions of the structure of the lexicon,

* the nature of semantic relations and of polysemy,

* the relation between meanings, concepts, and lexical organization,

* critiques of truth-semantics and referential theories of meaning,

* computational accounts of lexical information and structure, and

* the advantages of thinking of the lexicon as ordered.