Skillex, an action labelling efficiency score: the case for French and Mandarin

We propose a model to compute two measurements of semantic efficiency of verbs as action labels. It is based on the exploration of the specific structure of synonymy networks of verbs. We use these measurements to analyse and compare the semantic efficiency of [Children/Adults] productions in action labelling tasks, in French and Mandarin. The combination of these two measurements leads to a generic score of semantic efficiency, Skillex. Assigned to participants of the Approx protocol experiment, this score enables us to accurately classify them into Children and Adults categories, be they French or Mandarin native speakers.

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