37.2969, Diss: English, German; Computational Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Text/Corpus Linguistics: Chris Jenkins: "Compound(ing) Interest in Interesting Compounds or, Semantic Change and Distributional Representation of Noun Compounds"

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-37-2969. Wed Sep 16 2026. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 37.2969, Diss: English, German; Computational Linguistics, Historical Linguistics, Text/Corpus Linguistics: Chris Jenkins: "Compound(ing) Interest in Interesting Compounds or, Semantic Change and Distributional Representation of Noun Compounds"

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Date: 16-Sep-2026
From: Chris Jenkins [christopher.jenkins at ims.uni-stuttgart.de]
Subject: Compound(ing) Interest in Interesting Compounds or, Semantic Change and Distributional Representation of Noun Compounds


Institution: University of Stuttgart
Program: Institute for Natural Language Processing (IMS)
Degree Date: 2026
Level: PhD

Author: Chris Jenkins

Dissertation Title: Compound(ing) Interest in Interesting Compounds
or, Semantic Change and Distributional Representation of Noun
Compounds

Dissertation URL:
https://elib.uni-stuttgart.de/items/e56c0d03-82b9-43de-ba21-4d0cfbd5e204

Linguistic Field(s): Computational Linguistics
                     Historical Linguistics
                     Text/Corpus Linguistics

Subject Language(s): English (eng, stan1293)
                     German (deu)

Dissertation Director(s): Sabine Schulte im Walde

Dissertation Abstract:

The meanings of words are conditioned on the circumstances in which
they are used. The passage of time can make a term feel different in
subtle ways (sounding old-fashioned) or in more pronounced ways
(having a totally new meaning). This phenomenon of semantic change can
be difficult to notice until it is already a fait accompli. One
example could be the phrase `bad apple' --- used to refer to the
proverb `one bad [rotten] apple can spoil the whole bunch', which has
also been invoked metaphorically to mean quite the opposite: that one
bad actor should not tarnish the reputation of some wider organization
or institution.
This work is a study of the semantic change of (German and English)
noun compounds, constructions made up of more than one noun that
function like a single noun. The primary methodological tool for
modeling the meaning of noun compounds is through the use of
distributional semantic models, which make use of textual
co-occurrence in a variety of ways to produce non-symbolic (i.e.
continuous, vector-space) representations of meaning. This work
explores developments in distributional representations that are
sensitive to local context, which potentially can encode contrasting
senses of the same lexical symbol in distinguishable representations.
This technique is connected to the study of the changes of senses or
meanings associated with a given lexical symbol over time, and the
development of statistical models for detecting or otherwise
characterizing these differences, as encountered in diachronic
corpora. The specific kind of lexical items investigated are
themselves complex, as both the meaning of a noun compound taken as a
whole, as well as the meanings of its constituent words, are subject
to variation over time.
Computational experiments are performed using diachronic corpora to
model the semantic development of noun compounds across texts that
were authored across around a 200 year time-span. These experiments
serve to help refine methods for representing or comparing meanings
with statistical models, as well as to explore general trends over
time across noun compounds as a specific type of lexical item.



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