Distributional semantics and semantic transparency: resources and pointers

Installation of R and RStudio

R is a programming language, and RStudio is a software that provides a graphical user interface for R. You always need to install R first, followed by RStudio. Both pieces of software are available for free, and available for Linux and proprietary systems like Windows or Mac.

Install R first! Go to the page https://cran.rstudio.com/. Install R by selecting the correct version for your operating system and following the respective instructions.
Afterwards, install RStudio! Having installed R, go to the RStudio homepage (https://docs.posit.co/ide/user/#rstudio-ide-oss-downloads and select and install the appropriate version of RStudio.

Installation of further packages/libraries: In R, you can install a package with the command "install.packages()". For examples, "install.packages("LSAfun")" installs the package LSAfun. You can execute this command directly in the "console" window of RStudio.

Using vectorspaces with R and RStudio

A great resource is Fritz Günther's page. This subpage provides a number of vectorspaces for download. Fritz Günther is the author of the "LSAfun" package that we will be using a lot in our class. There is also a very gentle introduction to the package on youtube: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IlwIZvM2kg8. For documentation to that package, see here

Behavioral data

Balota, D.A., Yap, M.J., Cortese, M.J., Hutchison, K.A., Kessler, B., Loftis, B., Neely, J.H., Nelson, D.L., Simpson, G.B., & Treiman, R. (2007). The English Lexicon Project. Behavior Research Methods, 39, 445-459. Data available via their website: https://elexicon.wustl.edu/index.html [note: the website is functional, but their certificate is expired]
Gagne, Christina & Spalding, Thomas & Schmidtke, Daniel (2019). LaDEC: Large database of English compounds.
Keuleers, E., Lacey, P., Rastle, K. et al. The British Lexicon Project: Lexical decision data for 28,730 monosyllabic and disyllabic English words. Behav Res 44, 287–304 (2012). https://doi.org/10.3758/s13428-011-0118-4. They offer their data also as r-dataobjects, please go to the section "Electronic supplementary material" and download the ZIP file linked under "ESM 2". After unzipping that file, the file "blp-items.Rdata" is located in the unzipped folder

Other stuff

Four papers with non-distributional operationalizations of semantic transparency

ARNDT-LAPPE S. Analogy in suffix rivalry: the case of English -ity and -ness. English Language and Linguistics. 2014;18(3):497-548. https://doi.org/10.1017/S136067431400015X
Gagné, C.L., Spalding, T.L. & Schmidtke, D. LADEC: The Large Database of English Compounds. Behav Res 51, 2152–2179 (2019). https://doi.org/10.7939/r3-dyqx-9b36 [see also above :)].
Hay, J. (2001). "Lexical frequency in morphology: is everything relative?" Linguistics, vol. 39, no. 6, pp. 1041-1070. https://doi.org/10.1515/ling.2001.041
Gary Libben, Martha Gibson, Yeo Bom Yoon, Dominiek Sandra (2003). Compound fracture: The role of semantic transparency and morphological headedness, Brain and Language, Volume 84, Issue 1, Pages 50-64, https://doi.org/10.1016/S0093-934X(02)00520-5

Moodleless sessions

[02.11.2026] [04] Hands-on distributional semantics [bring laptop] (S1)
Download the file "blp-items.Rdata" via the British lexicon project before class (see resources, under Keuleers et al. 2012). As before, just save the file, do not open it with RStudio.
[We also will again be using the EN_100k vectorset, but this should be already available on your laptops (see last week :))]
Script documenting what we did in class (+ something extra):
WS26_4_handsOn_3_disSem2_inClass_DOCUMENTATION.R
[ST] [04] Open session: work in class on your scriptfile, I am there for questions/help
[09.11.2026] [05] Discussion scripting assignment 1 [bring laptops]
HA: Please try your hand at the scripting assignment. Use the script below as a starting point and fill it with your code. In the end, please save your final version, and send a copy to me by the deadline (Saturday, November 7th, 24:00). Follow the naming scheme in the file (so if I were to submit, I would call my file "Schaefer_Martin_WS26_disSem_scriptingAssignment_1.R").
WS26_disSem_scriptingAssignment_1.R