Argument Forms in Lexical Semantics

Productive argument selection: Is lexical semantics enough?

This paper is concerned with the ability of lexical semantic classes to predict the behavior of argument structures in productively selecting novel lexical material. It will be argued that while lexical semantic classes can explain a great deal about the spectrum of potential arguments and resulting entailments for those arguments, constructions which are synonymous from a formal semantic persp...

Lexical Semantics as a Basis for Argument Structure Frequency Biases

In language comprehension, the in uence of the frequency of various elements has long been recognized, with more frequent elements typically being processed more quickly or easily than less frequent ones. This has been most obvious for words (e.g., Just & Carpenter, 1980; Morton, 1969; Rayner & Du y, 1986), but the frequency of a range of elements which must be accessed and combined to interpre...

Competence in lexical semantics

We investigate from the competence standpoint two recent models of lexical semantics, algebraic conceptual representations and continuous vector models. Characterizing what it means for a speaker to be competent in lexical semantics remains perhaps the most significant stumbling block in reconciling the two main threads of semantics, Chomsky’s cognitivism and Montague’s formalism. As Partee (19...

Lexical Semantics

Affectedness and direct objects: the role of lexical semantics in the acquisition of verb argument structure.

How do speakers predict the syntax of a verb from its meaning? Traditional theories posit that syntactically relevant information about semantic arguments consists of a list of thematic roles like "agent", "theme", and "goal", which are linked onto a hierarchy of grammatical positions like subject, object and oblique object. For verbs involving motion, the entity caused to move is defined as th...