Chaos-Based Meaning Modeling
Marius Crisan
Department of Computer and Software Engineering, Polytechnic University of Timisoara
marius.crisan@cs.upt.ro
Abstract
A central problem in language processing is
meaning understanding. In a previous work we
introduced the concept that meaning is structured
information, and we devised a model, called
differentiated-cognition, in order to describe in a
compressed manner the meaning content of sentences.
The purpose of this work is to develop this result and
explore the possibility of modeling meaning in a
dynamics-based approach by enfolding the
differentiated-cognition description in chaotic
attractors. The results of simulations revealed the
potential offered by chaotic attractors to encode
meaning of words and sentences in a series of complex
enfoldments. This new approach may form the basis of
an integrated language generation-understanding
model.
1. Introduction
Attempts to explain language and identify a model
comprehensive enough to account for language
generation and understanding are rooted in ancient
times. In modern approaches, scientists are interested
in developing computational techniques for both
speech (or character/word sequences) recognition and
synthesis [1][2] in order to enable effective human-
machine communication. An important class of
methods of language processing is based on
probabilistic and statistical models [3], another one
uses neural networks [4][5] (in particular self-
organizing maps [6][7]), but the main challenge for any
approach is dealing with the nonlinear character of
language phenomenon. The main progress achieved so
far pertains in principal with a concise articulation of
the constraints that language obeys rather than to
provide a working model of language performance.
However, the recent evidences of neural sciences and
the development in the domain of dynamical systems
[8][9] may offer promising perspectives in modeling
such nonlinear processes as language processing from
the chaos theory point of view.
2. Meaning, a holistic concept
A central interest in any theory of language is to
explain the process of knowing the meaning of a
sentence, or how words and sentences can have a
semantic representation [10]. There are many
approaches for a theory of meaning [11][12] such as
meaning as reference, meaning as truth, meaning as
usage, meaning as perception, a naturalized account of
meaning, thought and language, etc. We are
particularly interested in developing a computational
approach for the process of understanding. In a
classical view, the information content of what a
sentence means can be generated from information
about the meaning of the sentence's constituent parts
and of the ways they are related to each other. In this
concept, natural languages are necessarily
compositional [13]. This means that complex
expressions or sentences are understood based on the
understanding of the constituent parts and their
arrangement in the sentence. In a compositional theory
of language, for each sentence in the object-language
there is a theorem that states the sentence meaning.
This theorem (called T-theorem) is derivable from
axioms that characterize the expressions and operations
forming that sentence and the order in which the
expressions appear. A typical critique of such an
approach, as in [14], has the central argument based on
the redundancy of such T-theorems derivations. For
someone who knows the theory of truth for that
language, in order to understand the sentences of that
language, all knowledge necessary is reducible to
knowing the axioms. Thus, derivation is epistemically
superfluous since it is conveyed by logical form.
However, the compositionality constraint has to be
satisfied by any theory of meaning for the simple
reason that the theory has to show how the meanings of
sentences are determined by properties of the simple
constituents of the sentences, coupled with the
combination or order in which the constituents appear
[13]. Yet, there are several difficulties here. First, what
constitutes the unit of meaning? Do the individual
words or even syllables (letters) have a separate
meaning by themselves, or meaning is present only
when they are combined together? Second, if we admit
that the complete semantic unit is the sentence then
what kind of combination of syllables and words is
possible, for instance in the process of pronouncing or
hearing when the uttered words are never together as
one whole? Obviously, the order of the sentence’s
constituents (syllables and words) should be
considered. But, what law would determine the order of
constituents? At word level, the order of syllables is
very strict. Words containing the same syllables in
different order have different meaning or no meaning at
all. Yet, the order seems to be less strict for the words
in a sentence in order to convey meaning. In principle,
the same words can be used in a rephrased sentence to
convey the same meaning. Another problem is to
account for the role an individual word might have in
sentence’s meaning. For instance, not all words refer to
a specific thing, or a given word may be used in large
varieties of contexts and circumstances. Also, there are
causes that may create difficulties such as the
similarity/dissimilarity of words’ form (polysemy,
homonymy, homophony, etc.). From such
considerations, we may draw the conclusion that a
formal compositional theory of meaning should be
revised in order to encompass the nonlinear phenomena
of meaning manifestation from sentence’s constituents.
In our approach we start from several premises that
were discussed in a previous work [15]. Language and
thought are interrelated, i.e., there is no cognition
without the operation of words. Although the individual
words or even letters may have meaning, the sentence
is considered the complete form of a meaningful
thought. In our view, linguistic communication is based
on the concept that meaning is ‘structured information’
that must have a finite description and manifests as a
whole at the level of sentences. An utterance (sentence)
is meaningful if it can generate knowledge (cognition)
in an ideal receiver (hearer or reader). This knowledge
is the result of a reaction mechanism triggered by the
series or words in the sentence. In other words, it’s a
process of extracting information from that sentence.
We have to make distinction between the transmitter’s
cognition that has originated the sentence and the
receiver’s cognition upon the transmitted sentence.
Obviously, in an ideal communication process both
cognitions have to be similar. The assumption is that
the structured information accounting for meaning has
the property of being communicable. We named this
information structure undivided meaning whole
(UMW). This may be similarly conceived as
informational structure of an algorithm that exists
internally at the agent’s information level. The
linguistic apprehension is a cognition process that takes
place in two phases. First, the separate syllables or
words uttered by the transmitter and/or heard by the
receiver act as a manifold at the perceptive level.
Second, this manifold has to trigger a unitary state of
linguistic cognition or UMW. If we want to follow the
compositional constraint and account for an integrated
meaning at the sentence level we have to postulate the
existence of an underlying principle of identity.
Without that underlying identity, the sentence’s
constituents could not be related and remain only
separate entities. Such an underlying principle can be
identified in the nature of nonlinear dynamic systems
that manifest a deterministic chaotic behavior.
The UMW concept and its type of dynamics appear
consistent with chaotic attractor modeling. There is a
fundamental connection between chaos and
information. This view is also supported by other
works (such as [16][17]) that demonstrated that a
chaotic system can be manipulated to encode symbolic
representation of a desirable message. Also, in other
approaches [18][19], chaotic attractors are used to code
words and sentences in a process of interaction of
attractors.
A chaotic system behavior follows complicated
trajectories in state space, none of which dominates
under normal conditions. These trajectories are not
random but follow specific patterns being drawn
toward the chaotic attractor. This attractor
characterizes the chaotic system and is determined by
the dynamic variables and parameters of system
equations. Because of the rich variety of trajectories
which are kept as a whole by the system’s nature, a
chaotic system is a natural source of structured
information, and a suitable space for manifesting the
underlying principle of identity, of which we spoke
above. If the syllables composing a word are mapped to
a chaotic attractor then its dynamic behavior could
account for the unitary conveying of meaning at the
word level. At the sentence level, the chaotic attractors
corresponding to the constituent words are enfolded in
a resulting chaotic attractor that accommodates the
UMW, as a unitary information structure. This contains
all the information of the component parts but in a
higher-order way of integration. In the reversed
process, when an agent wants to communicate, it
begins with the UMW that exists internally in its
knowledge base. The agent identifies a configuration
for a chaotic attractor that contains the UMW
description. Then the subattractors for each of the
component words are identified. Finally, according to
the corresponding dynamics for each subattractor, the
syllables are generated. Therefore, when words are
uttered in sequence, only apparently they are
differentiated or separate entities. In fact, they are the
component trajectories of the same chaotic information
source. Thus, the model preserves the underlying unity
of meaning, providing in the same time an account for
linguistic communication through series of distinct
words. The unitary structure of UMW at the transmitter
is composed of cognitive semantic units that unfold and
produce the sequence of uttered words that generates in
the receiver’s knowledge base a similar UMW by a
correlated enfoldment process.
The enfoldment of attractors and the formation of
UMW is a cognitive process that involves the dynamics
of chaotic systems. In order to model this process we
need a formal description of UMW. We suggest to use
a metalinguistic concept, that we named differentiated-
cognition in [15]. According to this concept, we may
know an object by its capacity to be known. This
follows a classical approach in the philosophy of
language where cognition is described as knowing an
object in terms of other objects (see for instance [20]).
If a certain object x is cognized as another object y,
then we write C(x, y). This forms a semantic unit. x is
called the differenced word and y the differencer. For
instance, the meaning of the sentence “The sky is blue”
can be described or cognized in the following terms:
“sky” is cognized as being “blue,” C(s, b). It’s
interesting to note that the same meaning can be
extracted from the simple cluster of words, “the blue
sky.” Syntactically, this is not a complete sentence
because it doesn’t contain a definite verb, but
according to the differentiated-cognition approach, we
define a sentence as any series of words that satisfies
the differenced-differencer relationship, and hence
convey meaning. This type of description can be
generalized and applied to more complex
constructions. The model can describe the meaning of
all declarative sentences because they have similar
semantic structure. The differentiated-cognition
universal pattern can be conveniently represented using
the differentiated-cognition phrase (DCP) tree. This is
a semantic counterpart of the X-bar schema, with which
it can be suitably linked [15]. The syntactical model of
X-bar schema facilitates the construction of the
semantic DCP tree by determining the sentence’s
element that will occupy the head position in the DCP
tree. The central element which occupies the head
position in DCP tree determines the nature of the
meaning cognitive structure, because that element is
cognized by its properties denoted by the elements on
the right side of the tree. The element in the head
position can be either a nominal or a verbal word. This
is of interest in the philosophy of language where
meaning is analyzed from an object-like (substance-
like) or action-like (state-like) original cause (see also
[20]). For instance, in the above sentence, the head
word can be “the sky” which is cognized by the rest of
the words, as shown above, or can be the verb “is”. In
the latter case, the action “is” or state of ‘existence’
that has as object “blue-ness” is cognized as ‘the sky’.
According to the differentiated-cognition description,
the enfoldment process of the attractors takes place
starting with the attractor that corresponds with the
word in the head position. In the fourth section we
present an example of a DCP description and
correspondent enfoldment of chaotic attractors.
3. Chaotic dynamics of meaning
In our approach we suggest a model of chaotic
attractors enfoldment based on differentiated-cognition
description of meaning. This model proves to be more
comprehensive and noise-tolerant. Continuing our
previous work [21], we exploited the suitable dynamic
property of chaotic attractors to map in a continuous
manner the feature vectors according to some input
patterns. The unified word feature vector is obtained by
a many-to-one mapping, starting from the component
letters (phonemes). This bears the unique information
structure of the word meaning. Slight variations in the
input feature vectors of the component letters
(phonemes) are tolerated without major changes in the
chaotic attractor dynamics. This is an indication of
robustness in meaning preservation in the case of noise
(or differences in syllables pronunciation or letters
form). Each letter is modeled by a different chaotic
attractor and then embedded in a higher order equation
that describes the cognitive dynamics of that word. In
the present work, we extend this technique and
construct the embedded chaotic attractor for the whole
sentence.
We consider the simpler case where each letter is
characterized by a 3-dimensional feature vector, Z =
[z1, z2, z3]. The letter feature vector is mapped as a
chaotic attractor selecting the appropriate values for the
coefficients z1, z2, z3 in the following quadratic iterated
map:
xt+1 = z1 + z2xt + z3xt2. (1)
The quadratic map was chosen as example, for the sake a2, a3], R = [r1, r2, r3], and H = [h1, h2, h3], are mapped
of simplicity, in order to illustrate the basic principle of by the following equations:
the proposed model. It is nonlinearly stable, and can
manifest a variety of chaotic attractors suitable for st+1 = s1 + s2st + s3st2, (6)
mapping the alphabet letters. at+1 = a1 + a2at + a3at2, (7)
Based on letter feature vectors, a unified word rt+1 = r1 + r2rt + r3rt2, (8)
feature vector can be constructed. For a generic word ht+1 = h1 + h2ht + h3ht2, (9)
w, composed by a series of n letters l1l2...ln, the word
feature vector is W = [L1, L2,… Ln]. The quadratic where st, at, rt, and ht are the dynamic variables. The
maps Li, i = 1, n, corresponding to the component resulting attractor, ws, for word Sarah is constructed as
letters form the coefficients of the following
polynomial type equation, ws(t+1) = k1+k2(stwst+atwst2+rtwst3+atwst4+htwst5), (10)

wt+1 = k1 + k2(l1twt + l2twt2 + … + lntwtn), (2) where k1 and k2 are scaling parameters.

where k1 and k2 are scale parameters. Eq. (2) describes

the chaotic behavior at the word level.
Next, following the structure of differentiated-
cognition model, the compound attractor for C(x, y) is
constructed by enfolding the chaotic attractor of the
differencer, wy, in the chaotic attractor corresponding
to the differenced word, wx, in the following form:

wx(t+1) = f(wxt) + g(wyt), (3)

where f and g are the chaotic functions of the two

words constructed from the component letters as in (2).
The enfoldment process is repeated successively for
the entire sentence. A higher order chaotic attractor is Figure 1. DCP tree for (4).
finally obtained that constitutes the meaning content or
UMW at the sentence level. In Fig. 2, the four trajectories (6) – (9) are presented
along with the resulting chaotic attractor (10). The
coefficients are: s1 = 1.2, s2 = 0.01, s3 = –1.5, a1 = –
4. Simulation results 0.9, a2 = –1.6, a3 = 0.6, r1 = 0.8, r2 = –1.1, r3 = –1, h1 =
–1.1, h2 = –0.5, h3 = 1.3, k1 = 0.45, k2 = 0.7.
In order to exemplify the proposed approach, let’s
consider the following simple sentence:

“Sarah drives a red car.” (4)

According to the differentiated-cognition model, the

meaning content of (4) results as:

C(S, C(d, C(c, r))), (5)

Where S, d, c, and r are abbreviations for Sarah,

drives, car and red, respectively. The corresponding
DCP tree is presented in Fig. 1. Sarah is cognized as
the doer or ‘driver’, specified by the verb ‘drives’,
which has the object a car, which in turn is cognized
by the property of being red.
The letters s, a, r, and h in the word Sarah, with the Figure 2. Chaotic attractors for Sarah, (10),
corresponding feature vectors S = [s1, s2, s3], A = [a1, and the corresponding letters s, a, r, and h.

Figure 3. Chaotic attractors for drives (11) and
the corresponding letters d, r, i, v, e, and s.
Figure 4. Chaotic attractors for car (12) and
the corresponding letters c, a, and r.
Figure 5. Chaotic attractors for red (13) and
the corresponding letters r, e, and d.
Similarly, the chaotic attractors for the letters c, d, e, i,
and v, can be constructed using the following
parameters: c1 = 0.9, c2 = –0.8, c3 = –1.1, d1 = 0.5, d2 =
–1.4, d3 = –0.6, e1 = –1, e2 = –1, e3 = 0.7, i1 = –0.4, i2 =
–1.2, i3 = 1.2, v1 = 1.1, v2 = –0.6, v3 = –1. Next, the
attractors for the other words in the sentence, wd for
drives, wc for car, and wr for red, result as follows:
wd(t+1) = k1+k2(dtwdt+rtwdt2+itwdt3+vtwdt4+etwdt5+stwdt5),
(11)
wc(t+1) = k1+k2(ctwct+atwct2+rtwct3), (12)
wr(t+1) = k1+k2(rtwrt+etwrt2+dtwrt3). (13)
In Fig. 3, 4, and 5 the dynamics of these words along
with the component letters are depicted. Comparing the
behavior of the word attractors, we can observe how
the different pattern for each word is given by the
combinations of the component letters in the specific
order, following the compositional constraint. The first
letters (syllables) in the word have a greater influence
in the resulting pattern than the latter ones. For
instance, it’s interesting to note the slight resemblance
of the attractors (10) (Fig. 2) and (12) (Fig. 4). Because
the first syllables ‘sar’ and ‘car’ are rather similar,
their influence upon the resulting pattern is major. The
model is noise tolerant and meaning preserving. Slight
variations in the input feature vectors of the component
letters are equally well integrated without major
changes of the word attractor pattern.
Finally, the resulting attractor for the entire sentence
is formed following the differentiated-cognition
description (5), and the process of chaotic enfoldment
described by (3). The resulting attractor is presented in
Fig. 6. wrt is enfolded in wct, which is enfolded in wdt,
which in turn is enfolded in wst. The combined effect of
the component words meaning creates a pattern that
encapsulates in a unitary way the meaning (UMW) for
the whole sentence.
Figure 6. Chaotic attractor that captures the
meaning of the entire sentence (4).
 Of course, the variety of letter attractors is not very
rich in our examples because we used only simple
quadratic maps. Therefore, the resulting word patterns
are somehow less complicated, but they are suggestive
enough to illustrate the principles of the proposed
model. In a future work, using, for instance, ordinary
differential equations, more sophisticated word
attractors can be constructed.
5. Conclusions
The paper presented the basic elements of a chaos-
based approach to a theory of meaning, starting from
the observed similitude between language apprehension
phenomenon and the chaotic behavior of dynamical
systems. The proposed approach was validated by the
simulation results. In conclusion, we suggest that the
model can be used equally well in both language
understanding and generation, in building
communicating agents and modeling brain dynamics in
language processing.
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