Computer-assisted approaches to semantic maps: History, methods and future prospects in semantic typology

A semantic map is a way to visually represent the relationships (or similarity) between meanings based on patterns of co-expression across languages (Georgakopoulos & Polis 2018; 2022). In this talk, I will first present a brief history of research in the field, starting with the so-called ‘classical semantic maps’ (Haspelmath 2003; van der Auwera 2013) — which typically take the form of a graph, with nodes standing for meanings and edges between nodes standing for relationships between meanings —, before turning to the so-called ‘proximity maps’ — which resort to statistical techniques that position the meanings in a two-dimensional space (Klis & Tellings 2022; Wälchli 2023). In a second step, I will demonstrate how both types of maps may be inferred from large-scale typological data and evaluate the pros and cons these two methods for creating co-expression maps (Croft 2022). Finally, three fundamental questions of the semantic map model will be addressed based on case studies in the fields of PERCEPTION/COGNITION and of EMOTIONS/VALUES: (1) the validity of the basic assumption, namely, to what extent does co-expression reflect semantic similarity; (2) the central problem of identifying analytical primitives in the domain of semantics; and (3) the possible use of semantic maps to support diachronic and synchronic descriptions of individual languages.