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Bibliographic Details
Main Author: Joshi, Swarang
Format: Preprint
Published: 2025
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Online Access:https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.27477
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author Joshi, Swarang
author_facet Joshi, Swarang
contents This study investigates how well computational embeddings align with human semantic judgments in the processing of English compound words. We compare static word vectors (GloVe) and contextualized embeddings (BERT) against human ratings of lexeme meaning dominance (LMD) and semantic transparency (ST) drawn from a psycholinguistic dataset. Using measures of association strength (Edinburgh Associative Thesaurus), frequency (BNC), and predictability (LaDEC), we compute embedding-derived LMD and ST metrics and assess their relationships with human judgments via Spearmans correlation and regression analyses. Our results show that BERT embeddings better capture compositional semantics than GloVe, and that predictability ratings are strong predictors of semantic transparency in both human and model data. These findings advance computational psycholinguistics by clarifying the factors that drive compound word processing and offering insights into embedding-based semantic modeling.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2510_27477
institution arXiv
publishDate 2025
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle The aftermath of compounds: Investigating Compounds and their Semantic Representations
Joshi, Swarang
Computation and Language
This study investigates how well computational embeddings align with human semantic judgments in the processing of English compound words. We compare static word vectors (GloVe) and contextualized embeddings (BERT) against human ratings of lexeme meaning dominance (LMD) and semantic transparency (ST) drawn from a psycholinguistic dataset. Using measures of association strength (Edinburgh Associative Thesaurus), frequency (BNC), and predictability (LaDEC), we compute embedding-derived LMD and ST metrics and assess their relationships with human judgments via Spearmans correlation and regression analyses. Our results show that BERT embeddings better capture compositional semantics than GloVe, and that predictability ratings are strong predictors of semantic transparency in both human and model data. These findings advance computational psycholinguistics by clarifying the factors that drive compound word processing and offering insights into embedding-based semantic modeling.
title The aftermath of compounds: Investigating Compounds and their Semantic Representations
topic Computation and Language
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2510.27477