Semantic primitives and compositionality: An Annual Review of Information Science and Technology ( ARIST ) paper
Birger Hjørland · Journal of the Association for Information Science and Technology · 2025
Abstract The term semantic primitives refers to a set of basic, atomic concepts from which all other (compound) concepts are constructed. It presupposes the principle of compositionality —the idea that complex items or expressions can be formed by combining simpler constituents. Both notions are of particular relevance to knowledge organization (KO), where concepts are understood to be the primary objects of organization in knowledge organization systems (KOS). Semantic primitives, therefore, may be viewed as candidates for foundational units in such systems. Moreover, these concepts play important roles in fields such as automatic language processing, lexicography, word sense disambiguation, and artificial intelligence. In KO, they relate to methods such as semantic factoring and facet analysis, while in linguistics they parallel componential analysis. Nevertheless, semantic primitives and compositionality remain controversial, with strong arguments both for and against their very existence. The philosophical assumptions underlying these debates have significant implications for information science and knowledge organization.