Generative semantics for prepositions , prefixes , and compounds

This paper presents ideas for formally representing and working with prepositions as stand-alone constructs in connection with nouns and verbs, as prefixes, and as connecting constituents in compounds. As main starting points serve (a) Davis’ proto(typical) roles for linking subject and complements of verbs with semantic roles in HPSG, (b) Pustejovsky’s generative lexicon theory, and (c) Cyc’s approach to hierarchical semantic relations. The objective is to reduce specification effort to a minimum while maximizing the possibilities to combine words, stems, and prefixes generatively: The semantics of prepositions in space, time, and logic as well as the principles of language-specific conceptualizations are put to use in hierarchical specifications. As much information as possible is stored in more general specifications. The issue is one of precisely constraining lexical entries and generatively explaining creative language use. Applications: (1) Machine translation – for each language prepositions are mapped only to and from the interlingual representation. (2) Disambiguation – the semantic structures of the preposition’s arguments refine each other. (3) Selectional restrictions and the semantics of compounds – verbs, prepositions, and nouns carry syntactic as well as semantic information whose compatibility is checked by means of generative lexicon theory.