A Computational Prototype Theory-Based Study of Hyponym Typicality in Arabic and English Using the Web as Corpus

Abstract

Using web-as-corpus, this study explores the prototypicality of four semantic categories: crimes, emotions, diseases and drinks, in two corpora: Arabic and English. Theoretically implicating on Rosch’s prototype theory (1975), the study aims at quantitatively categorizing the different members of four semantic categories in four web domains: .com, .org, .info and .edu over a 7-year span (2010-2016). The study answers several questions including ‘how effective is the prototype theory in specifying a category prototypes?’, ‘are there any differences or similarities in the ranking of the family members of the same concept?’, ‘Can changing domains affect the conceptualization and categorization?’, as well as ‘how far does the cultural, or societal, level influence the cognition of a certain concept?’. Results reveal that the prototype of emotions in Arabic is ‘خوف’ but the English prototype is "anger". ‘خوف’ in the concordance of the Arabic corpus correlates to theological, political and economic predisposing factors –stipulating custody of thoughts and acts. However, ‘anger’ is traced in people who are less controlled by ‘fear’. However, the cultural difference is almost effaced as regards the best example of ‘drinks’ in the oriental and occidental conceptualizations: coffee. Still, variance exists when it comes to the herbal preferences versus alcoholic predilection of beverages in the centroid area near coffee. Hierarchical semantic clusters have proven rich as regards the cognitive lexicalization