IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/bla/jinfst/v77y2026i1p198-223.html

Semantic primitives and compositionality: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper

Author

Listed:
  • Birger Hjørland

Abstract

The term semantic primitives refers to a set of basic, atomic concepts from which all other (compound) concepts are constructed. It presupposes the principle of compositionality—the idea that complex items or expressions can be formed by combining simpler constituents. Both notions are of particular relevance to knowledge organization (KO), where concepts are understood to be the primary objects of organization in knowledge organization systems (KOS). Semantic primitives, therefore, may be viewed as candidates for foundational units in such systems. Moreover, these concepts play important roles in fields such as automatic language processing, lexicography, word sense disambiguation, and artificial intelligence. In KO, they relate to methods such as semantic factoring and facet analysis, while in linguistics they parallel componential analysis. Nevertheless, semantic primitives and compositionality remain controversial, with strong arguments both for and against their very existence. The philosophical assumptions underlying these debates have significant implications for information science and knowledge organization.

Suggested Citation

  • Birger Hjørland, 2026. "Semantic primitives and compositionality: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology (ARIST) paper," Journal of the Association for Information Science & Technology, Association for Information Science & Technology, vol. 77(1), pages 198-223, January.
    • Handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:77:y:2026:i:1:p:198-223
    DOI: 10.1002/asi.70011
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://doi.org/10.1002/asi.70011
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://libkey.io/10.1002/asi.70011?utm_source=ideas
    LibKey link: if access is restricted and if your library uses this service, LibKey will redirect you to where you can use your library subscription to access this item
    ---><---

    More about this item

    Statistics

    Access and download statistics

    Corrections

    All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:bla:jinfst:v:77:y:2026:i:1:p:198-223. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

    If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

    We have no bibliographic references for this item. You can help adding them by using this form .

    If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

    For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: Wiley Content Delivery (email available below). General contact details of provider: http://www.asis.org .

    Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

    IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.