notes-cog-basicLevelCategories

The attributes of 'basic level' categories/words/concepts are:

• "characteristic patterns of behavioral interaction" [1]
• "...a single mental image can reflect the entire category" [2] "A clear visual image can be formed" [3]
• "the ((category)) with the most attributes distinctive of the concept in question." -- [4] "Categories in the middle level of a taxonomic hierarchy tend to be highly differentiated in that they have both high levels of within-category similarity and low levels of between-category similarity. Research on similarity reveals a distinction between pairs of categories that are seen as dissimilar because they have few commonalities and pairs that are seen as dissimilar because they have many psychologically relevant alignable differences. The authors suggest that the low between-category similarity proposed for neighboring basic-level categories is actually a matter of having many psychologically relevant differences. In contrast, the low between-category similarity of superordinates is a result of their having few commonalities." Similar and Different: The Differentiation of Basic-Level

stuff that could be detected from WordNet? and from corpuses:

• "relatively short (containing less letters than their hypernyms/hyponyms in average)" "Average word length of direct hyponym minus target word length >= 4" [5]
• "Its direct hyponyms have more synsets than its direct hypernyms" [6]
• "morphologically simple" [7]
  • "an item composed of two or more words is NOT a basic level word" [8] (in WordNet?, compound words may juxtapose words with spaces or hypens, or apparently maybe even without(?) [9])
• "basic level words have the highest compound ratios. In comparison with their hypernyms and hyponyms, they are much more frequently used to form compound words." "Compound ratio of full hyponym >= 25%" [10]
• " Basic level words have the ability to permeate through two to three levels of hyponyms in forming compounds. By contrast, words at the superordinate levels do not have such ability, and their compounds mostly occur at the direct hyponymous level" [11]
• "Are basic level words frequent words in general? Can we use frequency to substitute for ‘basichood’" [12]

Note that "a subordinate word of a basic level word may act as a basic level word itself" eg "card" is a hyponym of "paper" [13]

Some evidence that they are important:

• "People almost exclusively use basic-level names in free-naming tasks" [14]
• "the level first named and understood by children" [15] "Children learn basic-level concepts sooner than other levels" [16]
• "Basic-level is much more common in adult discourse than names for superordinate categories" [17]
• "the level with the shortest primary lexemes" [18]
• "the first level to enter the lexicon of a language" [19]
• "the level at which subjects are fastest at identifying category members" [20]
• "the level at which most of our knowledge is organized" [21] "Corresponds to genus" "Folk biological categories correspond accurately to scientific biological categories only at the basic level" [22]
• "Different cultures tend to use the same basic-level categories, at least for living things" [23]
• "the level that most faithfully mirrors natural kinds" [24] [25]