PROTOYPE THEORY

Componential analysis

Components/features/dimensions

Ref 1
Ref 2
Ref 3
Ref 4

Example:

REF wings fly feathers beak eggs sing nest on walls

Nightingale X X X X X X -
Penguin X - X X X - -
Swallow X X X X X X X
Ostrich X - X X X - -
Chicken X - X X X - -

Swallows and Nightingales are “good” and prototypical birds.

A more flexible model is needed in order to describe reality

Prototype Theory

 Ludwig Wittgenstein (PHILOSOPHER)

He established the idea of family resemblance, which included the idea of sharing features
with our family.

Example: Game –chess, dice, corro de la patata, hide and seek, football. There are
many categories, but they are all different

It's enough to have family resemblance, not to share all features.

Extendable boundaries, categories are actually applied in other situations or

circumstances. Absence of common features.

Example: Game –videogames

  John Austin (PHILOSOPHER)

He was a philosopher who talked about chaining relationships. If the senses of a

polysemous word share something among them, there’s any relationship between sense A
and D? The senses had at least one resemblance.

Sense A – Sense B – Sense C – Sense D

Example:

Climb a mountain, a ladder, a tree –to ascend, physical movement, using our 4
limbs (PROTOTYPICAL ITEMS TO CLIMB)

The plane climbed up to 10,000 feet –to ascend, physical movement

Climb up to be Vice President –to ascend, not physical movement = social ladder
METAPHOR

 Zadeh (1960) (ARTIFICIAL INTELLIGENCE)

He worked in artificial intelligence, MS2 was based on a sequence of 1 and 0 numbers. So,
he came up with the idea of fuzzy areas (área difusa). This meant that there’s no 1 or 0,
but actually is something in between: non-binary scales. Useful against structuralism.

Example: Olive is not a prototypical food nor vegetable. It’s a kind of fuzzy area.

 Eleanor Rosch (1970s) (PSYCHOLOGIST)

She was a psychologist and anthropologist it was the first who began to talk about
prototype categories, although she didn’t had language in mind. She did experiments on
colours, taste and numbers; being very successful. She published very influential articles in
the 1970s and began to talk about a lot of categories and categorisation.

She established that prototype had a psychological notion: salience in the mind. The
prototype is the first thing that comes to our mind.

It is most taken because is most frequent? Or it is most frequent because is most taken?

But there can also be an analytical notion: centrality. It is the result of an analysis, what is
most central. The one who shares more characteristics with other senses of the concept.

She measured different items in tests:

Reaction time: a _______ is a ______? The shorter reaction time, more PT.
Free production: name 7 _______ The firsts items, more PT than the others.
Draw a ________ The first thing to draw, more PT.
Sort list of referents from good to bad The best referents are the more PT.
Radial network

It has like a network sense, as a spider. In the middle the most PT and then the rest.

Centrality gradience –it can be central up to a degree

Membership gradience –the sense to which something is a member of a concept:

BIRD

Prototype theory

i. Prototypical categories cannot be defined by means of a single set of criterial

(necessary and sufficient) attributes –STRUCTURALISTS
ii. Prototype categories exhibit a family resemblance structure. Their semantic structure
takes the form of a radial set of clustered and overlapping meanings – Ludwig
Wittgenstein
iii. Prototype categories exhibit degrees of category membership; not every member is
equally representative for a category
iv. Prototype categories are blurred at the edges –Zadeh (fuzzy areas)

Hedges

They were first described by Lakoff in 1973, who described almost more than 40. There is
something that allows us to see the structure of the concept.

She is a gypsy but she is a good student

She works fully time but she is a good mother

She is a housewife but she is a good mother

The word BUT is the hedge in these three sentences, as it has to do with our expectations. It
tells us something about the structure of the category of gypsies.

An ostrich is a bird par excellence

A nightingale is a bird par excellence

This sums in on the very central meaning of birds, to say than ostriches are central prototypical
birds is not correct.
 Loosely speaking a table is a piece of furniture

Loosely speaking a lamp is a chair of furniture

The hedge implies that the category of table is not a central piece of furniture, whereas is not
the case. It focuses on the periphery.

Taylor:

Hedges require us to distinguish between central and peripheral members of a category {par
excellence, strictly speaking}, as well as between different degrees of non-membership in
category (strictly speaking). They show that category boundaries are flexible (loosely
speaking).

i. Prototypical categories cannot be defined by means of single set of criterial (necessary

and sufficient) attributes
We can see prototype theory from the point of view of psycholinguistic and also from
an analytical point of view.
ii. Prototype categories exhibit a family resemblance structure. Their semantic structure
takes the form of a radial set of clustered and overlapping meanings
iii. Prototype categories exhibit degrees of category membership; not every member is
equally representative for a category
For example, olive, as many people wouldn’t recognize it as a piece of fruit

When we say extension of meaning we think about a reference. If I say bird, it can refer to an
ostrich, raven, seagull, etc. BUT when we say intention of meaning we talk about the
definition, for instance, a definition of bird.

 Extension: reference
 Intension: definition

We have differences in the degrees of representativity = centrality gradience

An absence of clear boundaries

Clusters of overlapping senses: Austin chaining relationship (AB BC CD…)

Absence of classical definition: the classical definition would be a short definition that helps
you differentiate that thing from other things.
The prototypicality of prototypicality: some categories exhibit a high degree. Others are more
like “classical categories”. Water=H20

“The prototype maximizes the distinctiveness of a category visa-vis its neighbouring,

contrasting categories. Thus, the fruit prototype maximizes the distinctiveness of fruit vis-à-vis
contrasting categories, such as ‘vegetable’ and ‘nut’, whereas the bird prototype maximizes
the distinctiveness of birds vis-à-vis land and sea creatures” John R. Taylor

Neighbouring category: for example, fruit and vegetables. They are very similar but are
different categories.

If we take fruit and vegetables, apple and lettuce, there is a difference in shape, texture,
flavour, taste, etc.

Prototypes vs. stereotypes: stereotypes are more like characteristics, personal traits. But there
are also stereotype