How can we investigate ancient greek categories without the influence of our own? exploring kinship terminology using word2vec

Abstract

Abstract Recent advances in Natural Language Processing (NLP) continue to open up new lines of enquiry for lexicography, especially for research areas concerned with semantic categorisation. The aims of this paper fall into two parts. In the first half, the NLP tool Word2Vec is introduced and discussed with respect to unsupervised category formation for Koine Greek, using kinship terms as a demonstration of the model’s utility. The latter half of the paper employs a prototype theory framework to analyse the model’s distributional information in the construction of new dictionary entries for each kinship term. Such NLP-based research highlights the importance of encyclopaedic information for the construction of lexical entries; it also significantly improves upon earlier attempts at categorisation for Koine Greek (Louw and Nida 1988), which fall victim to using the L1 categories of the lexicographer in the construction of semantic domains for the ancient language.