The KEY to lexical semantic representations

Abstract

It is widely accepted that the semantic content of a lexical entry determines to a large extent its syntactic subcategorization or other contexts of occurrence. However, clarifying the precise extent to which this hypothesis holds has proven difficult and on occasion controversial. To maintain this hypothesis, scholars have in many difficult cases introduced syntactic diacritics in their lexical semantic representations, thereby running the risk of rendering it vacuous. Our answer to this challenge is two-fold. First, on the substantive side, we argue that the problem lies in the assumption that the semantic content of lexical entries consists of a recursive predicate-argument structure. In contrast, we claim that the semantic content of lexical entries can consist of a set of such structures, thus eschewing semantically unmotivated predicates that merely ensure the correct semantic geometry. Second, on the structural side, we suggest that the semantic content of words can idiosyncratically select one of those predicate-argument structures for the purposes of direct grammatical function assignment. We show that this hypothesis, which builds on independently motivated proposals regarding the form of underspecified natural language semantic representations, provides a clean account of linking phenomena related to several classes of predicators : verbs whose denotata require the presence of an instrument, the semantic role of French ' adjunct' clitics, commercial event verbs, the spray/load alternations, and lexical subordination constructions.Theories of the general principles governing the mapping of the semantic arguments of predicators onto syntactic functions or their subcategorization are often referred to as linking theories or mapping theories. 2 It is now [1] The order of the authors' names is random; each contributed equally to this paper.

Using instruments to understand argument structure: Evidence for gradient representation

“…This description is also compatible with theories where the argument/modifier distinction is non-categorical (Langacker, 1987; MacDonald, Pearlmutter, & Seidenberg, 1994; Manning, 2003). In later work, Koenig & Davis (2006) and Koenig et al (2008) suggest that the instrument occupies a discrete slot in the structural component of verbal meaning.…”

Locative orientation and locative arguments: A case study from Kinyarwanda

“…A large body of work on the nature of verb meaning has proposed that the meaning of a verb is decomposed into event structures (Lakoff 1965, Jackendoff 1990, Dowty 1979, Hovav & Levin 1988, Hale & Keyser 1997, Levin & Rappaport Hovav 1995, Wunderlich 1997, Rappaport Hovav & Levin 1998, Davis & Koenig 2000, Harley 2003, Koenig & Davis 2006, Ramchand 2008. Entailment-based approaches to argument realization propose instead that a verb has a particular predicate argument structure, and each of the verb's arguments is associated with a set of entailments that must hold of that argument for the event to be appropriately described (see Levin & Rappaport Hovav 2005: 51-68 for a summary).…”

Representing argument structure

“…The semantic relation type hierarchy [8] In a later paper, Koenig & Davis (2006) Figure 2 is mirrored by a parallel word-class hierarchy, where linking is defined. For example, the act-und-rel semantic relation type is associated with the act-und-vb verb type, where the Actor argument is linked to the subject and the Undergoer argument to the object.…”