kontrastset

Kontrastset, in linguistics and cognitive science, refers to a collection of related items or predicates that are used to highlight contrasts with a focal term. The set is designed to illuminate semantic relations, category boundaries, and the strength of particular features by providing alternatives that differ in meaning or grade.

In practice, a kontrastset is used to test how people interpret descriptions, how meanings are structured, and how contextual factors influence truth conditions and implicatures. For example, when studying scalar terms, researchers might present a target description such as tall and offer a contrast set that includes short, medium, and very tall to observe how people judge applicability or degree. In lexical semantics, a kontrastset around the color term blue might include cyan, navy, and indigo to explore the boundaries of color categories.

The selection of items in a kontrastset is important: the choices should be theoretically motivated and balanced to avoid biasing results. Sets are often language- and culture-specific, reflecting how different communities carve semantic space. They are also used in experimental design, cross-linguistic comparison, and educational contexts to demonstrate how contrastive cues influence interpretation and decision making.

Related concepts include contrastive linguistics, scalar implicature, and categorization studies. The term kontrastset is the Norwegian form of contrast set and is used similarly in discussions of semantics, pragmatics, and experimental methodology.