arXiv:2606.21195cs.CLcs.AI2026-06

LLM 的指称不是固定链接,而是依赖上下文与数值结构的动态分布模式。

Beyond Hooking Onto the World: Referential Profiles and the Numerical Structure of LLM Grounding

  • 指称基于使用模式和语境,非固定绑定。
  • 通过权重、注意力等数学机制实现分布式参考表征。
  • 适合研究语言模型认知机制的学者阅读。

本文重新审视大语言模型(LLM)的指称问题,回应近期向量接地理论的发展。虽然接受从符号接地转向向量接地的范式转变,但指出当前讨论在两点上仍不完整:其一,指称常被简化为孤立表达与对象间的固定链接,而实际上指称是基于使用模式、修正、区分、推断和延续的谱系化、情境化、具情感性且受规范约束的参照轮廓;即使在人类中,指称也通过公共实践稳定,而非私有表征一致。其二,向量接地需解释数值实现机制:LLM 并非通过感知、记忆或理解获得指称,而是通过优化,参数化人类世界导向实践的语言痕迹。在有限的向量系统中,参照轮廓必须分布存储、可叠加,并通过上下文敏感计算恢复。权重、激活、注意力引导的隐藏状态、软最大训练对比、内积对齐是语言关系得以稳定并因果活跃的数学场所。机制可解释性发现(如实体特征、知识神经元、情绪激活方向)间接支持此观点。这些发现不证明 LLM 拥有人类指称,而支持更有限的主张:LLM 可具备衍生的、语言中介的、基于轮廓的、数值结构化的指称形式。

原文摘要 · Abstract (English)

This paper revisits the grounding problem for large language models in light of recent vector-grounding accounts. I accept the shift from classical symbol grounding to vector grounding, but argue that the current debate remains incomplete in two respects. First, reference is often treated too thinly, as if it were a fixed link between an isolated expression and an object. I argue instead that reference is profile-based, context-sensitive, discourse-level, affectively shaped, and norm-governed. Even in the human case, reference is publicly stabilized through patterns of use, correction, distinction, inference, and continuation rather than through identical private representations. Second, vector grounding requires an account of numerical realization. LLMs do not acquire reference through human perception, memory, intention, embodiment, or understanding. Rather, through optimization, they parameterize linguistic traces of human world-directed practice. In a finite vector system, referential profiles must be distributed, may be superposed, and are recovered through context-sensitive computation. Weights, activations, attention-mediated hidden states, softmax-trained contrasts, and inner-product alignments are the mathematical sites at which inherited linguistic relations become stable and causally active. Mechanistic interpretability findings, including entity-like features, knowledge neurons, and emotion-related activation directions, provide indirect support for this view. They do not show that LLMs possess human reference. They support a more limited thesis: LLMs may possess derivative, language-mediated, profile-based, and numerically structured forms of reference.

指称问题向量接地机制可解释性语言模型

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