# (Re)construing Meaning in NLP

arXiv: https://arxiv.org/abs/2005.09099 · HTML: https://mlsanity.com/paper/2005.09099/

## Key facts

- Cited by 16 papers in the map (data through 14 Oct 2026).
- First posted on arXiv 18 May 2020.

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

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- [Empirical Sufficiency Lower Bounds for Language Modeling with Locally-Bootstrapped Semantic Structures](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2305.18915/) (2023)
- [On General Language Understanding](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2310.18038/) (2023)
- [Evaluating the Impact of LLM-Assisted Annotation in a Perspectivized Setting: the Case of FrameNet Annotation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2510.25904/) (2025)
- [A Semiotics-Aware Framework for Evaluating Fidelity and Coverage in Natural Language Generation](https://mlsanity.com/paper/2609.26527/) (2026)

## Abstract (arXiv)

Human speakers have an extensive toolkit of ways to express themselves. In this paper, we engage with an idea largely absent from discussions of meaning in natural language understanding--namely, that the way something is expressed reflects different ways of conceptualizing or construing the information being conveyed. We first define this phenomenon more precisely, drawing on considerable prior work in theoretical cognitive semantics and psycholinguistics. We then survey some dimensions of construed meaning and show how insights from construal could inform theoretical and practical work in NLP.