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Thesis

French

ID: <

10670/1.syrrm8

>

Where these data come from
Lexical networks, Metaphor, Acquisition : an interdisciplinary and interlinguistic approach of verb lexicon

Abstract

When speakers have no access to the conventional label for an object or an event, they tend to extend, consciously or not, the meaning of another available lexical label. This phenomenon often occurs during the lexical acquisition stage of young children. When a such overextension goes beyond the conventional object or event category denoted by the produced label, it is a categorical overextension and the produced utterance is metaphorical: for instance, ``to undress an apple'' for the action to peel an apple is metaphorical.During this thesis, I developed SLAM, a computational system that automatically gives lexical solutions to metaphors filling a lexical gap. SLAM is based on a syntactic analysis of large corpora and on the Hierarchical Small World structure of synonymy networks. For instance, when the produced utterances are ``elle déshabille* une pomme'' ( ``she undresses* an apple'') or ``les bras* de l'arbr'' (``the arms* of the tree''), SLAM gives the interpretations here after: respectively, ``elle pèle une pomme'' (``she peels an apple'') and ``les branches de l'arbre'' (``the branches of the tree'').Then, I studied the dynamics of verb lexicon acquisition that is longer than noun lexicon acquisition. On the one hand, I built methodological tools for inter-linguistic studies of the dynamics of verb lexicon acquisition: (a) a methodological frame to build procedures to identify categorical overextensions of verbs; (b) a methodology to detect visual stimuli containing actions without cultural bias. On the other hand, I highlighted the links between the structure of synonymy networks and the dynamics of verbs lexicon acquisition in french and mandarin. This study has indicated differences in dynamics of verb lexicon acquisition between french and mandarin native speakers. Finally, I built REFLEX, a score that indicates the degree of verb lexicon acquisition and automatically categorizes young children vs adults in french and mandarin.

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