A Novel Procedure for Measuring Semantic Synergy

Abstract

One interesting characteristic of some complex systems is the formation of macro level constructions perceived as having features that cannot be reduced to their micro level constituents. This characteristic is considered to be the expression of synergy where the joint action of the constituents produces unique features that are irreducible to the constituents isolated behavior or their simple composition. The synergy, characterizing complex systems, has been well acknowledged but difficult to conceptualize and quantify in the context of computing the emerging meaning of various linguistic and conceptual constructs. In this paper, we propose a novel measure/procedure for quantifying semantic synergy. This measure draws on a general idea of synergy as has been proposed in biology. We validate this measure by providing evidence for its ability to predict the semantic transparency of linguistic compounds (Experiment<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M1"><mml:mrow><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">1</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:math>) and the abstractness rating of nouns (Experiment<mml:math xmlns:mml="http://www.w3.org/1998/Math/MathML" id="M2"><mml:mrow><mml:mn fontstyle="italic">2</mml:mn></mml:mrow></mml:math>).