Formal Distributional Semantics: introduction to the special issue

Abstract

Distributional Semantics (DS) has become one of the most essential tools of computational linguistics. Its vectorial representations of word meaning do not only provide an efficient, versatile model of the lexicon; they have proved to be an excellent basis for simulating a range of human cognitive processes related to similarity. Despite this success, it has been noted that DS still struggles to capture phenomena which have been extensively studied in Formal Semantics (FS), in particular those associated with reference and functional aspects of meaning. This has prompted questions about the feasibility of integrating the two theories. The present issue of Computational Linguistics offers state-of-the-art contributions towards the aim of developing an overarching theory of meaning in the form of a `Formal Distributional Semantics'. Our introductory article explains the motivation behind this goal and reviews the state of the field, providing the necessary background for the articles that follow.