# Language (Re)modelling: Towards Embodied Language Understanding

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.00311 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.00311/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 1 May 2020.

## Built on by (most cited first, 16 of 16)

- [Cognitive Architectures for Language Agents](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.02427/) (2023)
- [A Systematic Survey of Text Worlds as Embodied Natural Language Environments](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2107.04132/) (2021)
- [Towards Socially Intelligent Agents with Mental State Transition and Human Utility](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2103.07011/) (2021)
- [What company do words keep? Revisiting the distributional semantics of J.R. Firth & Zellig Harris](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2205.07750/) (2022)
- [Chain-of-Thought Reasoning is a Policy Improvement Operator](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2309.08589/) (2023)
- [Towards General Natural Language Understanding with Probabilistic Worldbuilding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2105.02486/) (2021)
- [Dyna-bAbI: unlocking bAbI's potential with dynamic synthetic benchmarking](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2112.00086/) (2021)
- [Breakpoint Transformers for Modeling and Tracking Intermediate Beliefs](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2211.07950/) (2022)
- [Will LLMs Replace the Encoder-Only Models in Temporal Relation Classification?](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2410.10476/) (2024)
- [Building Human-like Communicative Intelligence: A Grounded Perspective](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2201.02734/) (2022)
- [Amplifying Limitations, Harms and Risks of Large Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2307.04821/) (2023)
- [Contextualized Sensorimotor Norms: multi-dimensional measures of sensorimotor strength for ambiguous English words, in context](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2203.05648/) (2022)
- [LMs stand their Ground: Investigating the Effect of Embodiment in Figurative Language Interpretation by Language Models](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.03445/) (2023)
- [Exploring Multimodal Perception in Large Language Models Through Perceptual Strength Ratings](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2503.06980/) (2025)
- [Diachronic Data Analysis Supports and Refines Conceptual Metaphor Theory](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2209.12234/) (2022)
- [Towards a Neurosymbolic Reasoning System Grounded in Schematic Representations](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2509.03644/) (2025)

## Abstract (arXiv)

While natural language understanding (NLU) is advancing rapidly, today's technology differs from human-like language understanding in fundamental ways, notably in its inferior efficiency, interpretability, and generalization. This work proposes an approach to representation and learning based on the tenets of embodied cognitive linguistics (ECL). According to ECL, natural language is inherently executable (like programming languages), driven by mental simulation and metaphoric mappings over hierarchical compositions of structures and schemata learned through embodied interaction. This position paper argues that the use of grounding by metaphoric inference and simulation will greatly benefit NLU systems, and proposes a system architecture along with a roadmap towards realizing this vision.