<html aria-label="message body"><head><meta http-equiv="content-type" content="text/html; charset=utf-8"></head><body style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><p class="p1"><font size="4">Dear colleagues,</font></p><p class="p3"><font size="4">I would like to draw your attention to a recent development in vision–language modeling that appears highly relevant to linguistic discussions of the relationship between meaning and form.</font></p><p class="p1"><font size="4">On <span class="s1">11 December 2025</span>, a team from <span class="s1">Meta FAIR</span> released <i>VL-JEPA (Vision–Language Joint Embedding Predictive Architecture)</i> (arXiv:2512.10942v1, Chen et al.; including Yann LeCun and Pascale Fung). VL-JEPA departs in a principled way from standard token-generative models. Instead of being trained to predict linguistic output token-by-token, it is trained to predict <span class="s1">continuous semantic embeddings</span>. Linguistic output is produced only optionally at inference time via a lightweight decoder, when human-readable communication is required.</font></p><p class="p1"><font size="4">VL-JEPA operates primarily in a <span class="s1">non-linguistic semantic space</span>. This suggests a model architecture where:</font></p><ul class="MailOutline"><li><font size="4"><b data-path-to-node="11,0,0" data-index-in-node="0">Meaning</b> exists as an abstract, non-linguistic representation.</font></li><li><font size="4"><b data-path-to-node="11,1,0" data-index-in-node="0">Form</b> (symbolic, token-based representation) is a secondary encoding layer used for transmission.</font></li></ul><p class="p1"><font size="4">Empirically, the model shows that core tasks—classification, retrieval, and visual question answering—can be performed efficiently at the level of these semantic embeddings. Linguistic form thus appears to serve </font><span class="s1" style="font-size: large;">communicative efficiency </span><font size="4">rather than being a prerequisite for the underlying cognitive processing itself. These results resonate with recent findings in cognitive neuroscience suggesting that language is a tool for communication rather than the primary medium of thought (e.g., work by Evelina Fedorenko and colleagues).</font></p><p class="p1"><font size="4">This development invites us to revisit the relationship between meaning and form—an issue also central to practical concerns such as glossing and corpus construction. If language production can occur via both <span class="s1">form-based mechanisms </span>(generative next-token selection) and <span class="s1">meaning-based mechanisms</span> (non-generative, semantics-driven decoding), it raises a fundamental question for our field: <span class="s1">what exactly should linguists be annotating in corpora, and at which level of representation?</span></font></p><p class="p1"><font size="4">We previously discussed form–meaning separation on this list using the analogy of film-making; the distinction between <span class="s1">silent film (primary semantic content)</span> and <span class="s1">text/sound (a linguistic layer added for transmission)</span> may serve as a useful anchor for further thoughts here.</font></p><p class="p1"><font size="4">I will address this development in more detail in my upcoming workshop series. More generally, however, I look forward to any reflections the list may have on how these architectural shifts in AI might inform our typological theories.</font></p><p class="p2"><font size="4">Best wishes for the New Year,</font></p><p class="p3"><font size="4">Stela</font><b></b></p><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><font size="4">--</font></div><b>Dr. Stela MANOVA</b> </div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Chief Executive Officer (CEO), MANOVA AI</div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;">Principal Investigator (PI), Gauss:AI Global <br>Registration number 655453b<br>Sterngasse 3/2/6, 1010 Vienna, Austria<br>Email: <font color="#0061ff"><a href="mailto:manova@manova-ai.com">manova@manova-ai.com</a> </font></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><font color="#0061ff"> <a href="mailto:manova@gaussaiglobal.com">manova@gaussaiglobal.com</a> </font></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><font color="#0061ff"><span class="Apple-tab-span" style="white-space: pre;"> </span> <a href="mailto:manova.stela@gmail.com">manova.stela@gmail.com</a> </font><br>Web: <font color="#0061ff"><a href="https://www.stelamanova.com/">https://www.stelamanova.com</a> </font><br><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"> <a href="https://www.manova-ai.com/">https://www.manova-ai.com</a></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"> <a href="https://gaussaiglobal.com/">https://gaussaiglobal.com</a></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><br></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><span style="font-size: 14px; box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-width: normal; line-height: 29px; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal; orphans: 2; widows: 2;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700;">Workshop Series (2026) </strong></span><strong style="font-size: 14px; box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: center; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial;"><font color="#0061ff"><a href="https://gaussaiglobal.com/LingTransformer/">Linguistics Meets ChatGPT: From Prompt to Theory</a></font></strong></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><b style="font-family: Roboto, Arial, sans-serif; font-size: 14px; orphans: 2; text-align: center; widows: 2; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0);"><font color="#0061ff"><a data-_="Link" href="https://drive.google.com/file/d/1WJ2tOSgyXDAt0S-AyYys05wU4HyvLykt/view?usp=sharing" target="_blank" data-popup-processed="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; background-color: rgba(255, 255, 255, 0); font-width: normal; line-height: 36px; font-size-adjust: none; font-kerning: auto; font-variant-alternates: normal; font-variant-ligatures: normal; font-variant-numeric: normal; font-variant-east-asian: normal; font-variant-position: normal; font-feature-settings: normal; font-optical-sizing: auto; font-variation-settings: normal;">Call for Participation and 5-Minute Talks</a></font></b></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: center; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-size: 14px;"><font color="#f01123">Registration for Block 1 workshops is now open -- visit the </font><font color="#0061ff"><u style="box-sizing: border-box;"><a data-_="Link" href="https://gaussaiglobal.com/WS-Block-1/" data-popup-processed="true" style="box-sizing: border-box; text-decoration: none;">Block 1 webpage</a></u> </font><font color="#f01123">to register! </font></strong></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: center; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-size: 14px;"><font color="#f01123">Apply for a student stipend!</font></strong></div><div dir="auto" style="overflow-wrap: break-word; -webkit-nbsp-mode: space; line-break: after-white-space;"><strong style="box-sizing: border-box; font-weight: 700; font-family: "Helvetica Neue", Helvetica, Arial, sans-serif; font-variant-ligatures: normal; orphans: 2; text-align: center; widows: 2; background-color: rgb(255, 255, 255); text-decoration-thickness: initial; text-decoration-style: initial; text-decoration-color: initial; font-size: 14px;"><font color="#f01123"><br></font></strong></div></div></div></div></body></html>