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<Paper uid="W91-0214">
  <Title>FB lnformatik AB Wissensund Sprachverarbeitung</Title>
  <Section position="6" start_page="161" end_page="162" type="concl">
    <SectionTitle>
5 Conclusion
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Let me sum up my position. There is evidence from experimental psycholinguistics that we have to take into account an intra-linguistic level of semantic representations distinct from the extra-linguistic level of conceptual representations. In theoretical linguistics, the two-level theory can, for example, give an explanation of the differences in acceptability among expressions which are not fully correct from the point of view of compositional semantics. The theory claims that semantically deviant, though more or less acceptable, constructions require a non-compositional reinterpretation of some expression. Thereby,  the theory reflects the fact that their interpretation always involves a certain amount of reasoning. The need for an reinterpretation can be predicted from the semantic representations assigned to the respective i expressions. However, the conditions under which certain reinterpretations can or cannot be carried out are spelled out on the conceptual level. Due to extra-linguistic knowledge about types of situations (or, in cases other than those discussed in the present paper, tyi:)es of objects or other kinds of entities), some expressions allow for an appropriate reinterpretation and others do not. In addition, the two-level theory suggests a different perspective on the treatment of polysemous expressions. Rather than assigning a load of highly specialized semantic representations to the expressions in question, each of which incorporates a considerable amount of contextual information and whose number might easily get out of control in various linguistic fields, the theory highlights that there is a division of labour between the semantic and the conceptual level. Each level of representation makes its own contribution to what eventually will be the interpretation of a linguistic expression in a particular context.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
class="xml-element"></Paper>