Work

Do Language Models Have Semantics? On the Five Standard Positions

Year: 2025

Type: conference-paper

Abstract: We identify five positions on whether large language models (LLMs) and chatbots can be said to exhibit semantic understanding. These positions differ in whether they attribute semantics to LLMs and/or chatbots trained on feedback, what kind of semantics they attribute (inferential or referential), and in virtue of what they attribute referential semantics (internal or external causes). This allows for 24 = 16 logically possible positions, only five of which have been argued for. Based on a pairwise comparison of these five positions, we conclude that the better theory of semantics in large language models is, in fact, a sixth combination: Both large language models and chatbots have inferential and referential semantics, grounded in both internal and external causes.

Source: Annual Meeting of the Association for Computational Linguistics (ACL)

DOI: 10.18653/v1/2025.acl-long.1258

Author: Anders Søgaard

Language: English

Topic: Philosophy and Theoretical Science

Subfield: Experimental and Cognitive Psychology

Field: Psychology

Domain: Social Sciences

Open Access status: hybrid

OpenAlex ID: W4412889946

FWCI: 1.894

Cites:

Cited by: 1

Related to: 10