A Unified Model of Ad Hoc Concepts in Conceptual Spaces

Ad hoc concepts (like clothes to wear in the snow, for instance) are highly-context dependent representations humans construct to deal with novel or uncommon situations and to interpret linguistic stimuli in communication. In the last decades, such concepts have been investigated both in experimental cognitive psychology and within pragmatics by proponents of so-called relevance theory. These two research lines have however proceeded in parallel, proposing two unconnected strategies to account for the construction and use of ad hoc concepts. The present work explores the relations between these two approaches and the possibility of merging them into a unique account of the internal structure of ad hoc representations and of the key processes involved in their constructions. To this purpose, we first present an integrated two-level account of the construction of ad hoc representations from lexical concepts; then, we show how our account can be embedded in a conceptual space framework that allows for a natural, geometrical interpretation of the main steps in such a construction process. After discussing in detail two main examples of the construction of ad hoc concepts within conceptual spaces, we conclude with some remarks on possible extensions of our approach.

Automated summary

This paper investigates the construction and use of ad hoc concepts and explores the relations between two different research approaches. It first presents an integrated account of ad hoc representations and then embeds it in a conceptual space framework for a geometrical interpretation. The paper concludes with a discussion on possible extensions of the approach.