Prototypes and categories.

-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

Cognitive Linguistics

Cognitive linguistics is an approach to language that is based on our experience of the world and the
way we perceive and conceptualize it. Cognitive linguists believe that shared experience of the world is
also stored in everyday language and can thus be gleaned from the way we express our ideas. The
language we speak manifests our conceptualization of reality. Cultural experiences have an impact on
our cognition; therefore, they can have an impact on the language we speak. Our language an impact
on how we categorize reality in ready-made categories and and forces us to make conceptual
disctinctions.

Cognitive semanticists argue that:

o We conceptualize the same phenomemon in different ways across languages,

conditioned by the grammar of the language we speak
o The organization of meaning in our mind reflects the way in which we conceive and
conceptualize reality (our perception).
o The relationship between language and reality is mediated through cognition. The
language we speak reflects our conceptualization of external reality..
o One person´s perception of a phenomenon is not that different from other person´s
perception of the same phenomenon or event because members of the same
community tend to share conceptualizations as they share conventionalized cognitive
structures.
 Prototypes and categories

“The world consists of an infinite variety of objects with different substances,

shapes and colours. How do we translate this variety into manageable word
meanings and why do we succeed even where no clear-cut distinctions seem to be
available, such as between the colours “red” and “orange” or “green” and “blue”?
Experiential psychology has shown that we use focal or prototypical colours as
points of orientation, and comparable observations have also been made with
categories denoting shapes, animals, plants and man-made objects.”

Vagueness of boundaries between boundaries of entities has troubled philosophers and linguists
interested in the relationship between word meaning and extra-linguistic reality, and has given rise to
various theories of vagueness. Ye in spite of their vagueness, classification seems to be forced upon us
by the boundaries provided by reality. However, there are phenomena in the world where this is not
the case: the temperature scale and the colour continuum do not provide natural divisions which could
be compared with the boundaries of books, cars, and even knees or valleys the classification
of temperature and colours can only be conceived as a mental process, and physical properties, and
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

colours especially, have served as the starting point for the psychological and conceptual view of word
meanings which is at the heart of cognitive linguistics.This mental process of classification is commonly
called categorization and its products are the cognitive categories. Berlin and Kay (1969) claimed that
the colour continuum is structured by a system of reference points for orientation found that we rely
on focal colours for colour organization. They established a hierarchy of focal colours which could be
regarded as universal. The notion of focal colours appears as one of the most important steps on the
way to prototype model of categorization. Foci or focal colours: regions in the colour space which
were thought of as best examples by all or by most speakers of the same language and different
languages. There is compelling evidence that instead of being arbitrary, colour categorization is
anchored in focal colours. While the boundaries of colour categories vary between languages and even
between speakers of one language, focal colours are shared by different speakers aned even different
language communities.

 The psychological background of focal colours:

o From a psychological standpoint the categorization of natural phenomena involves:
 Selection of stimuli: of the wealth of stimuli which are perceived by our
sensory system, only a few are selected for cognitive processing (i.e. attract our
attention)
 Identification and classification: comparing selected stimuli to relevant
knowledge stored in memory.
 Naming: most cognitive categories are given names though some remain
unlabeled.
o Most of these aspects were investigated by E. Rosch (psychologist): her primary aim
was to find out whether focal colours were rooted in language or in pre-linguistic
cognition. Her idea was that a cognitive status might be claimed for focal colours if
they could be proved to be prominent in the cognitive processes involved in
categorization. Rosch’s findings:
 Perceptual salience of focal colours (selection of stimuli). They are perceptually
more salient than non-focal colours
 Data of focal colours is stored in memory (identification and classification)
 Normally we are confronted with an item but have to rely fully on data stored
in memory for comparison. This raises the question whether focal colours are
salient in memory as well, whether they recognized more accurately, learned
more easily and recalled more readily than other colours. Focal colours are
remembered more accurately in short-term memory than non-focal ones.
 The existence of colour terms available in a language facilitates speakers colour
recognition.
 Ease of retention of focal colours
 Given the salience of focal colours, names are produced more rapidly for focal
colours than for non-focal ones.
 The names of focal colours are more rapidly produced in colour naming tasks
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

 Children acquire the names of focal colours earlier than the names of non-
focal colours.

Focal colours appear to posses a particular perceptual-cognitive salience, which is probably

independent of language and seems to reflect certain physiological aspects of man’s perceptive
mechanisms. These results encouraged encouraged Rosch to extend to extend the notion of foci –or
prototypes- beyond colour categories.

CATEGORIZATION:

 Mental process of grouping and classification according to some kind of criteria, discriminating
and focusing on differences.
 The mind is able to perceive differences and oversee differences, and then group together and
generalize. The end result of the process is all the concepts in the mind: cognitive categories
(in the mind, not in the language.
 Categories are mental representations They are abstract
 Cognitive semanticists posit that not all elements in a category have the same status. Some
elements are perceived as more representative of a category than others. Representativeness
is a matter of degree, a property of members (subcategories) of a category. Mental categories
have a structure/organization, and there are good examples and bad examples of a category.
 There are categories that do have clearly delineated boundaries and others that don’t (fuzzy
boundaries)
 There are some features exhibited by some members of a category that are shared with
other members, but not all features are shared.
 Categories have a structure/ organization characterized by family resemblance. Each item has
at least one, and probably several, elements in common with one or more items, but no, or
few, elements are common to all item. (Members of categories display family resemblance)

PROTOTYPE:

 A mental representation of a category abstract.

 A set of features.
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

 All types of concrete entities and natural phenomena like colours are conceptually organized in
terms of prototype categories, whose boundaries do not seems to be clear-cut but fuzzy.
 Rosch: was concerned to prove that categories are formed around prototypes, which function
as cognitive reference points.
o At some unspecified point or area beyond their periphery, the categories somehow
fade into nowhere . These are transition zones. There are two different types of
transition zones:
 Vague entities/ Vagueness: Some concrete entities do not have clear-cut
boundaries in reality as individual entities (Ex: body parts, weather
phenomena, landscape forms, etc.). Entities merge into each other
 Fuzzy category boundaries/Fuzziness: Categories of entities merge into each
other, and these categories are product of cognitive classification. The lack of
uncertainty as to whether the term does or doesn’t denote.
o The prototype is associated with a name and also judged best example
o Prototypes have a crucial function in the various stages involved in the formation and
learning of categories.
 Categorization is not a yes-or-not distinction. Rather, it involves different degrees of typicality,
as is supported by goodness of example ratings, recognition, matching and learning tasks
 Black: he compared between “chairs “ and “non-chairs”.
 Lavob:
o in experimental and everyday categorizing situations, we normally do not just make a
division between the two categories “X” and “not X”, but that have two or several
names at our disposal which allow us to choose between neighbouring categories.
Therefore, it is more realistic to think of fuzzy category boundaries as fringe areas
between adjacent categories than as transitions to a conceptual vacuum.
o Fuzziness of category boundaries has many facets, of which context-dependence is
one of the most important.
o Categories do not represent arbitrary of the phenomena of the world, but should be
seen as based on the cognitive capacities of the human mind.
o Cognitive categories are anchored in conceptually salient prototypes, which play a
crucial part in the formation of categories.
o The boundaries of cognitive categories are fuzzy: they merge into each other.
o Between prototypes and boundaries, cognitive categories contain members which can
be rated on a typicality scale ranging from good to bad examples.
o Cognitive categories
o Single exemplar selected as prototype -May be real exemplar, or combination of
features from different exemplars
o Membership in category is determined by degree of similarity to prototype
o Higher similarity = better member of category
o A category defined by a prototype will have graded membership and a fuzzy boundary.
o Some items will be very similar to the prototype, and will clearly be a member.
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

o Other items will be less similar to the prototype, but may still be similar enough to be
classified as a member.
o Allows for categories with family resemblance structure.

Conclusion:
Cognitive categories are stored in our mind as mental concepts and signaled by the
words of a language, but there is no one to one relation between categories (or
concepts) and words (because words are polysemus)

The internal structure of categories: prototypes, attributes, family

resemblances and gestalt
Cognitive categories are labelled by words, and words are listed in dictionaries. It is therefore natural to
look for information about the contents of categories in dictionary entries. Dictionary definitions yield
two types of information:

 They supply the name of the category to which the entity belongs. This category name suggests
the properties shared by most items under the same name.
 The main body of the dictionary entry lists properties which are specific to the item in
question.

But the attributes used in dictionary entries are rather vague characteristics or typical aspects. An
additional question must be asked: Are attributes to be regarded as obligatory or not?:

 Categorical/Classical view: Position defended by structuralist and transformationalist linguists.

According to this view, a category is defined by a set of necessary and sufficient conditions
(essential features) which can be either present or absent. Such a rigid view of attributes and
categorization is bound to run into difficulties when it is applied to cognitive categories
consisting of good and bad examples and equipped with fuzzy boundaries.
 A much more differentiated notion of attributes is needed . There seems to be a bundle of
attributes that represent important aspects of a category and these attributes tend to correlate
in nature (appear together). Entities qualifying for those attributes have a particularly
prominent position in the category. Intermediate and bad examples of the category differ
from these prototypical examples in two ways: either they deviate to a moderate degree with
regard to one or more attributes or some attributes are missing altogether.( A yes/no
representation of attributes cannot adequately render the attributes of entities that belong to
a category and has to be modified to include intermediate judgements).

THE PRINCIPLE OF FAMILY RESEMBLANCE:

Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

It states that “Each item has at least one, and probably several, elements in common with one or more
other items, but no, or few, elements are common to all items”.

The principle of family resemblances opens up an alternative to the classical view that attributes must
be common to all category members, that they must be ‘category-wide’.

 Family resemblances can explain why attributes contribute to the internal structure of the
category even if they are not common to all category members, i.e. if they are not essential
features according to the classical view.
 In defining the position of a category member in its category, we are thus justified in
considering any sensible attribute proposed for this item.

Attribute and attribute-based typicality ratings

The correlation between typicality ratings and goodness of example could be used to support the
notion of prototype categories in two ways. On the one hand, the hypothesis that these categories
consist of good and bad members was no longer solely dependent on the intuitive judgements of the
goodness-of-example ratings, but could now be related to a large range of attributes. On the other
hand, the notion of good and bad examples could be used to explain why attributes are so unevenly
distributed among category members. While good examples have many attributes in common with
other members of the same category, bad or marginal examples share only few attributes with
members of the same category.

The attribute structure of prototype categories:

 Prototypical members of cognitive categories have the largest number of attributes in

common with other members of the category and the smallest number of attributes which
also occur with members of neighbouring categories. This means that in terms of attributes,
prototypical members are maximally distinct from the prototypical members of other
categories.
 Bad examples (or marginal category members) share only a small number of attributes with
other members of their category, but have several attributes which belong to other
categories as well: category boundaries are fuzzy.

Attributes and dimensions

Categorization and goodness ratings may indeed involve two stages:
 the perception of an object as a whole as the first step (the so-called holistic perception),
 a kind of decomposition of the perceived whole into individual properties or attributes as a
second (optional)“ step.

The idea of perceived whole comes close to the notion of gestalt , traced back to gestalt
principles:
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

• ‘principle of proximity’: individual elements with a small distance between them will be
perceived as being somehow related to each other.

• ‘principle of similarity’: individual elements that are similar tend to be perceived as one
common segment.

• ‘principle of closure’: perceptual organization tends to be anchored in closed figures.

• ‘principle of continuation’: elements will be perceived as wholes if they only have few
interruptions.

The more a configuration of individual elements adheres to these principles, the more it will
tend towards a clear-cut and cogent organization (called Prägnanz by the gestalt psychologists),
which lends itself to gestalt perception. The constituent parts play a central role in providing an
object with a gestalt Objects are perceived as integral wholes. Parts do not only
contribute to the overall shape of an object, but are also related to its function, which for most
artefacts is the raison d’étre of the object. Likewise, the existence of most parts of an object is
motivated by the particular purpose the object serves.

What makes one gestalt more prototypical for a category than another?

 Assuming a functional design of the parts, we would expect from a prototype gestalt that of
the object or entity have the appropriate form which allows the entity to comply with certain
functions. Even more important, the parts would have to have the right proportions The
decisive difference with a list of attributes is that these functionally balanced parts are all
integrated into one gestalt, and are perceived as a whole.
 For concrete objects as well as organisms the prototype Gestalt should be conceived as a kind
of reduction to the relevant and mainly visual essential, though perceived as a whole.
 Even in the domain of concrete objects we are not just confronted with a single kind of gestalt
prototype (the ‘reduced type’) but have to take into account that certain lexical categories
require richer visual representations, which in turn suggest richer underlying gestalt
prototypes. The situation becomes even more complex when we consider that for many lexical
categories – those loosely called ‘abstract’ categories – gestalt perception is largely excluded.
 Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

 Gestalt perception seems indeed to play an important part in categorization and goodness
ratings. It seems to be as essential as the possibility of studying attributes and family
resemblances and computing attribute-based typicality ratings.
 The role of gestalt in the categorization of objects and organisms need not be completely left
to intuition, it can be studied by making selective use of the principles of gestalt psychology
and by considering additional aspects like parts and function.

The cognitive status of categories, prototypes, attributes and Gestalt

Importance of categorization for the linguist: For the linguist, categorization is an important issue
because it underlies the use of words and the use of language in general. Since producing and
understanding language undoubtedly involve cognitive processes, categorization is necessarily
something that takes place in our minds, and the categories resulting from it can be understood as
mental concepts stored in our mind. Taken together they make up what has been called ‘mental
lexicon’. We do not have access to cognitive phenomena: Categories of the mental
lexicon are based on a well-founded hypothesis. Such a hypothesis can be supported by philosophical
argument, by physiological research into the human sensory apparatus and by experimental evidence
based on linguistic and other human behaviour.

There are unlimited hypotheses about cognitive categorization. Here are two paradigms discussed:

1. Classical model of categorization hypothesis: This hypothesis claims that categories come as
homogeneous units with clear-cut borderlines and that all members are characterized by a
limited number of essential features (a set of necessary and sufficient conditions). This simple
model is often accompanied by the philosophical speculation that this type of category mirrors,
or is even predetermined by, the constitution of the organisms and objects in the ‘real’ world.
COGNITIVE VIEW The problem is that this logical hypothesis is not in accordance with the evidence collected by
OF
physiologists and psychologists.
CATEGORIZATION
2. Experiential prototype hypothesis of categorization: This hypothesis claims that categories are
not homogeneous, but have a prototype, good and bad members, and have fuzzy boundaries.
Category members do not all share the same discrete attributes, but may be linked by family
resemblances. In the case of colours and shapes, prototype theory is supported by both
physiological and psychological evidence.

The view that categorization is something that underlies the mental process of language
comprehension and language production.

PROTOTYPE:

 A mental representation
 Cognitive reference point
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

The mind works by comparison : whatever we perceive is compared with prototypes stored in the
mind. Certain activities in human life require an effort to beware of prototypes (Ex:Science).

CATEGORY MEMBERSHIP AND TYPICALITY

Unlike the homogeneous categories postulated by the logical hypothesis, cognitive prototype
categories always consist of good and bad members and include marginal examples whose category
membership is doubtful.

But do ordinary language users have the encyclopaedic knowledge to decide whether an entity has
certain attribute or not? If they do not, the issue whether an entity belongs to the a will remain
undecided, and the entity will be a doubtful member of the prototype category.

The classical paradigm of categorization has a wide field of application wherever there is a need for
precise and rigid definitions as in the domain of scientific categorization or in the legal field. And there
is no reason why the discrete categories of science and the everyday prototype categories should not
coexist in the mental lexicon and even influence each other.

ATTRIBUTES AND FAMILY RESEMBLANCE

When the attribute lists for individual category members are compared, this is assumed to reflect the
similarity relations between category members. Such similarity relations may encompass all category
members (‘category-wide attributes’) or they may establish links only between some of the members
(´family resemblances´).Since similarity relations between good and bad members of a category are
part of the hypothesis of prototype structure, this implies that they are also part of the mental
representation of a category. This is not necessarily so for the empirically collected attributes which are
elicited from informants and which may be fragmentary and overlapping. So attributes are best
considered as a descriptive tool and not as part of the mental representation of the category.

GESTALT

If a gestalt 1 is organized according to the gestalt principles and includes the functional parts of an item
in functionally balanced proportions, it may be regarded as a ‘prototype gestalt’. This ties in with the
definition of prototype as an ‘image’. In fact, in the case of organisms and concrete objects where
visual perception seems to be important, the prototype gestalt contributes considerably to the ability
of the prototype to function as a model or cognitive reference point.

Context-dependence and cultural models

The prototypes of cognitive categories are not fixed, but may change when a particular context is
introduced, and the same is true for category boundaries. The whole internal structure of a

1
Gestalt (n): something such as a structure or experience that, when considered as a whole, has qualities that are
more tan the total of its parts
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

category seems to depend on the context and on our social and cultural knowledge, which is thought
to be organized in cognitive and cultural models.

Prototypes are liable to keep shifting as the context changes

THE CONTEXT DEPENDENCE OF PROTOTYPES AND OF THE WHOLE INTERNAL CATEGORY STRUCTURE

What turns out the most likely member of a certain category depends on the context. Depending on
the context, the protype shifts. The context-dependent categories thus evoked may be completely
different from the non contetxtualized prototypes elicited in goodness-of –example experiments.

In some cases the category structure of the context-dependent category is much leaner than that of
the non-contextualized category.

The context not only determines the choice of the category prototype , but it also leads to an
adjustment of the position of other category members.

Attributes

 Used as an explanatory tool: Weighted attributes can be employed to explain the typicality
structure of a category.
 Context has a two-fold effect in terms of attributes:
o Context can change the weight of attributes that seem to be relevant for a certain
category.
o The context can emphasize attributes that are not prominent and even introduce new
attributes which would not be mentioned at all in non-contextualized attribute-listing
experiments. Previously peripheral examples are equipped with
large bundles of heavily-weighted attributes and turned into good examples or even
protoypes, while well-established good examples are reduced to the status of marginal
members.

What is context?

For cognitive linguists:

 Situation: interaction of objects in the real world

 Context should be considered a mental phenomenon. A cognitive representation of
the interaction between the concepts. Context is immediately associated in at least
two ways with related knowledge stored in long term memory:
*PAGE 30*
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

1. Context-specific knowledge about the categories involved is retrieved. (About the most typical
member of the context-dependent category)
2. The currently active context calls up other contexts from long-term memory that are
somehow related to it.

For all kinds of phenomena that we come across in everyday life, we experience and store a large
number of interrelated contexts.

COGNITIVE CATEGORIES ARE NOT JUST DEPENDENT ON THE IMMEDIATE CONTEXT IN WHICH THEY
ARE EMBEDDED , BUT ALSO ON THIS WHOLE BUNDLE OF CONTEXTS THAT ARE ASSOCIATED WITH IT.

COGNITIVE MODELS: All the stored cognitive representations that belong to a certain field.
They represent a cognitive, basically psychological, view of the stored knowledge about a certain field.
The sum of the experienced and stored contexts for a certain field by an individual.

 INCOMPLETENESS: They are basically open-ended, and therefore, it is very hard to describe
the cognitive model of a domain and descriptions of CM are always highly selective.
 TENDENCY TO BUILD NETWORKS: Cognitive models themselves are not isolated cognitive
entities, but interrelated: cognitive models combine to build networks.
 OMNIPRESENCE: Cognitive models are omnipresent. In every act of categorization we are
referring to one or several cognitive models that we have stored. In very rare cases, when we
encounter a very unfamiliar object or situation, threw will not be an appropriate cognitive
model available. We always try to relate what we are encountered with, with cognitive models
at our disposal.
 Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

WE CAN NEITHER AVOID THE INFLUENCE OF COGNITIVE MODELS NOR FUNCTION WITHOUT THEM.

Uncontextualized language in the sense of “language without cognitive models” is apparently

unthinkable.

CULTURAL MODELS:

In view of the fact that cognitive models represent a cognitive, basically psychological, view of the stored
knowledge about a certain field and that descriptions of cognitive models are based on the assumption that
many people have roughly the same basic knowledge about things, cognitive models are not universal, but
depend on the culture in which a person grows up. (Descriptions of cognitive mdoels are based on the
assumption that many people have roughly the same basic knowledge about certain things)

The culture provides the background for all the situations that we have to experience in order to be able to
form a cognitive model Cognitive models for particular domains ultimately depend on cultural
models: cognitive models that are shared by people belonging to a social group or subgroup.

TWO SIDES OF
COGNITIVE THE SAME COIN
MODEL

CULTURAL
MODEL

 Cognitive model:
Stresses the psychological nature of these cognitive entities and allows for inter-individual
differences.
 Cultural model:
Emphasizes the uniting aspect of its being collectively shared by many people. They are not
static, but changing.

The difference between cultural models has an impact on the structure of a category.
Sometimes different cultural models must be assumed even where the same language and the
same words are used.
Prototypes and categories.-Ungerer, Friederich & Scmid

The cognitive models shared by the members of a culture are similar and distinct from the
cognitive models stored in the minds of people from other cultures. Cultural models have an
enormous influence on the conceptual structures of categories.
The effects of diverging cultural models on the structure of a category:
Different cultural models are apt to lead to different prototypical examples of the same
category/concept.
NAIVE MODELS AND EXPERT MODELS:
Cultural models may include assumption that, from a strictly scientific point of view, may be
questionable or even inaccurate (as they are based on our everyday experiences of the
phenomena around us).

EXPERT CULTURAL MODELS NAÏVE CULTURAL MODELS

Based on hard scientific facts and the rules of Based on informal observations, traditional
logic. beliefs, superstions (“folk models”)

The cultural models held by the majority of the people need not be , and often are not, in line
with the objectibly verifiable, scientific knowledge available to experts. Laypersons need
functionally effective models: in line with what we perceive and enable us to make
functionally correct predictions (genuinely cognitive principles).

KEY POINTS

 Cognitive categories interact with and influence each other and this can cause a shift of
category prototypes, of boundaries and of the whole category structure.
 The internal structure of categories depends on cognitive and cultural models which
are always present when language is processed.