Measuring out the relation between formal and conceptual semantics

Abstract

In this paper, we argue that contemporary approaches of constructionalist syntax in which there is no generative lexicon provide an interface between formal and conceptual semantics with which the gap between formal and conceptual semantics can be bridged. We introduce the framework with the discussion of formal and conceptual aspects of meaning in German spatial denominal pre x-and particle verbs. We then show the representation of both formal and conceptual semantics in the same framework that allows to measure out the relation between formal and conceptual semantics in terms of the distribution of direct objects over verbs and corroborate our proposal with a corpus study.