Honoring Different Ontological Boundaries: The Role of Language in Category Formation

Honoring Different Ontological Boundaries: The Role of Language in Category Formation Duc N. Tran (dntran2@uh.edu) Department of Psychology, 126 Heyne Bldg. Houston, TX 77204 USA Hanako Yoshida (yoshida@uh.edu) Department of Psychology, 126 Heyne Bldg. Houston, TX 77204 USA Abstract The present study examines the different ways in which language structure marks individuation and cue early attention in a novel noun generalization task. Results in the present study extends the Boundary Shift Hypothesis, suggesting that the linguistic boundary between individuals and nonindividuals influences the perceptual boundaries and the correlational patterns formed overtime between ontological kinds. The results provide a new perspective on the facilitative role of linguistic markers in category formations, rather than strictly in boundary formations. This demonstrates the potential degree of cognitive processing among different language learners and lends support towards a mechanistic explanation of the role of language in categorical formations. Keywords: category learning, categorical structure, ontology, ontological boundaries, linguistic structure, individuation Introduction Language is a symbol system that maps the world’s categories. It allows people to efficiently shape their world through abstract representations. Words have long been viewed as a vital unit that allows one to shape abstract information to promote and refine clusters of information for representational use. Such examinations allow one to group information into arbitrary categories that assist in later retrieval (with less effort and less cost). Categories are essential in all general learning and have become a key device in allowing children (Katz, 1963) and adults (Goldstone, Lippa, & Shiffrin, 2001) to effectively make sense of their surrounding world. Previous research concerning ontological boundaries provided evidence that suggests linguistic cues available in one’s environment enhances the way world categories are distinctively perceived. The present mechanistic proposal hypothesizes that if a language supports both boundaries, then the cluster of correlations between perceptual and linguistic cues available in such language should readily aid in honoring all ontological categories. The present research addresses this question by examining how the Vietnamese language may honor different ontological boundaries and, more importantly, category formation. Categorical Structure and Ontological Distinctions There are three different types of ontological categories in the world: Animate, Inanimate (Discrete), and Substances. Distinctions between these categories depend on the magnitude of individuation. In the Individuation Continuum described by Lucy (1992), individuation occurs when an entity is conceptualized as bounded and discrete. In this continuum, animates lie at one end (more individualized) and substances at the other end (less individualized) of a continuous spectrum, with inanimates comprising the middle (i.e., animates———inanimates———substances). The likelihood that a particular entity is conceptualized as an individual varies systematically across the continuum from animates to substances (Lucy, 1992). Learning associations for categorization that ties labels and meanings together facilitates relational judgments to be transferred to novel stimuli (Lupyan, Rakison & McClelland, 2007). For instance, when different labels were provided among the same exemplars, discrete differences are highlighted between the stimuli that affect one’s judgment to separate items into different categories (Lupyan, Rakison & McClelland, 2007). A traditional approach to this issue has asked whether language is simply a symbol system that maps to all the relevant categories found in the world. Another view is that language creates and shapes human cognition (Whorf, 1956). People can interpret the world quite differently if they come from different language backgrounds and such differences have significant effects on the level of cognitive processing among these language learners (Cook, 1977; Bent, 2006). Research on the Japanese and English language, for instance, posits the importance of linguistic cues as a vital factor that couples available perceptual cues in the environment to facilitate perceptual regularities in the world (Imai & Gentner, 1997; Yoshida & Smith, 2005). Individuation in English In English, individuation is frequently demonstrated by the count/mass distinction. Count nouns are nouns that can take the plural form (e.g. cups, cats), usually denoted with an –s after the noun. Thus, count nouns are conceptualized as discrete entities that are bounded and individualized. Mass nouns, however, are not pluralized (e.g., milk, water), but instead take continuous quantifiers (e.g., some, much). Thus, mass nouns are conceptualized as continuous entities that are unbounded and massed. For example, “My cats (count noun) drank some (continuous quantifier) milk (mass noun) from the