Distributed Compositionality: Formal Foundations for Distributional Semantics

Abstract

This half-day tutorial introduces Distributed Compositionality, a view of meaning construction as a distributed process unfolding across representational layers, contextual cues, and inference. We motivate the need for a distributed account by contrasting traditional, single-step function application with recent distributional and neural approaches in which interpretation emerges from interactions among latent structures.

We introduce the dual-aspect semantics from recent work in Generative Lexicon Theory and two representation modules:

• Qualia Event Structure (QES): Embeds qualia roles within event decomposition to explain causal/goal structures.
• Dynamic Object Model (DOM): Tracks object identity and state change across events.

Together, QES and DOM provide a linguistically grounded architecture for synchronizing event-based and object-based updates, linking symbolic transparency with the adaptability of distributed models.

Instructors