Semantic Combinatorial Processes in Argument Structure: Evidence from Light Verbs

1. Introduction Any theory of how language is internally organized and how it interacts with other mental capacities must address the fundamental question of how syntactic and lexico-semantic information interact at one central linguistic compositional level, the sentence level. With this general objective in mind, we examine “ " light-verbs” " , so called because the main thrust of the semantic relations of the predicate that they denote is found not in the predicate itself, but in the argument structure of the syntactic object that such a predicate licenses. For instance, in the sentence Sue made a dash across the road, the character of the event expressed by make a dash is determined not so much by the main predicate make as by the object DP a dash. This situation defines the verb make as a light-verb, and the combination of the verb and the argument structure of its object as a “ " light-verb construction” ". Their behavior therefore lies at the interface between syntactic and lexico-semantic representation (e. Here, we seek to chart the time-course of interpretation of light-verbs, and through doing so, compare two possible ways it might take place. The first is a lexical approach, according to which the light-verb interpretation is fully listed as an idiom in the lexicon (i.e., a case of logical polysemy). The second is a compositional approach, according to which light-verb constructions are built “ " in real time” " , as it were; that is, the resulting interpretation of the light-verb construction arises out of the local syntactic and semantic context of the predicate and its object. We hypothesize that if the construction of light-verb interpretation is lexicalized in nature, it should be observable during real-time comprehension as soon as it is licensed. However, if, as the compositional approach suggests, the light-verb construction’'s interpretation is built online from the argument