FOR 600:  Functional Concepts and Frames

• Subject Area: Humanities
• Term: from 2005 to 2013
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 13165901

The Research Unit investigates so-called functional concepts and their relation to a very general mode of description, the frames of cognitive psychology (Lawrence Barsalou). Functional concepts (FCs) describe their objects as something that, for a given object of reference, exists only once: its length , its meaning , its mother , its head. In defining its object as belonging to something else, they are relational, in applying to only one object, they are inherently unambiguous. These properties of the concept type are reflected in grammar: being relational, FC nouns often occur in possessive constructions and due to their inherent unambiguity, they are mostly used in definite NPs. FCs can be used for a precise partial description of the object of reference that singles out, and names, a particular aspect of it (e.g. its length, meaning etc.). They constitute a relatively young achievement of language that probably emerged under the influence of scientific development. The linguistic projects explore the criteria for recognising this type of concept and investigate its grammatical and semantic properties both synchronically, typologically and historically.
Barsalou considers frames a universal format of description; according to him all our cognitive concepts are frames. A frame describes an object through a set of attributes such as size , function , shape etc. For these attributes a more or less precise value is specified. The choice of a set of attributes and the assignment of values to them yields a description, of similar structure as, say, the description of a person in a passport. According to Barsalou, all cognitive categories and individual objects we know are represented in our minds by such frames.
The attributes in Barsalou frames are functional concepts. Seen in this way, any mental description is a description in terms of an appropriate set of functional concepts (where we are not, however, entitled to assume that our languages provide terms for all these FCs). Therefore, those FCs that (already) are lexicalised lay open components of the mental descriptions we use.
The philosophical projects investigate the formal properties of Barsalou frames, their neurological foundation, the role of frames in the development of science and the history of the theory of concepts in metaphysics.

• DFG Programme: Research Units

Projects

• A frame-theoretic investigation of the dynamics of scientific theories, their conceptual systems and their realistic reference (Applicant Schurz, Gerhard )
• Automatic classification of concept types (Applicant Kilbury, James )
• Development of functional concepts in French (Applicant Geisler, Hans )
• Dimensional verbs (Applicant Löbner, Sebastian )
• Formal modeling of frames and functional concepts (Applicant Löbner, Sebastian )
• Formale Semantik funktionaler Nomen (Applicant Zimmermann, Thomas E. )
• Frame Semantics for Verbs (Applicant van Valin, Robert D. )
• Functional Concepts and Frames (Applicant Löbner, Sebastian )
• Historisch-systematische Untersuchung zentraler Termini der Substanzmetaphysik anhand der Dichotomie von sortalen und funktionalen Begriffen. (Applicant Kann, Christoph )
• Neuroframes: A Neuro-Cognitive Model of Situated Conceptualization (Applicant Schurz, Gerhard )
• The frames and functional concepts of urine diagnostics from medieval to modern times (Applicant Fangerau, Heiner )
• Types of nouns and determination across languages (Applicant Löbner, Sebastian )

• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Sebastian Löbner