Overview of Lexical Semantics of Verbs

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Overview of Lexical Semantics of Verbs

• Lori Levin
• December 1, 2003

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What is Lexical Semantics?

• Lexical semantics is about the meanings of words.
• It is not about sentence-level meaning
• Truth conditions of sentences
• How meanings noun phrases and verb phrases are
  combined compositionally to make meanings of
  sentences
• Quantifier scope
• Etc.

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Aspects of lexical semantics not covered in this
lecture

• Nouns, adjectives, adverbs, and prepositions
• Selectional restrictions
• Colorless green ideas sleep furiously
• Count and mass nouns
• There was water all over the driveway.
• There was dog all over the driveway.

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Outline

• Transitivity alternations and semantic classes of
  verbs
• Lexical aspect
• Lexical conflation
• How universal is lexical semantics?
• Unaccusative verbs (non-agentive subjects)
• Survey of computational lexicon projects

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Transitivity Alternations

• Transitivity does the verb have a direct object
  or not.
• Transitivity alternations
• Broader meaning
• Changes in the number of arguments a verb has
• Changes in the grammatical relations of arguments

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English Transitivity Alternations

• Beth Levin, 1993
• Identified around 100 transitivity alternations
  in English.

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Transitivity Alternations and Semantic Classes
Examples

• Causative-Inchoative change of state verbs
• Sam broke the glass. (causative)
• The glass broke. (inchoative)
• Sam opened the door.
• The door opened.
• Sam kicked the ball.
• The ball kicked.
• In other languages
• Inchoative verbs may be reflexive (e.g., Romance
  languages)
• There may be a causative marker on the transitive
  verb.
• Inchoative means beginning.
• Beginning a change of state?

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Transitivity Alternations and Semantic Classes
Examples

• Dative Shift giving and telling
• I gave Sam the book.
• I gave the book to Sam.
• I told the story to the children.
• I told the children the story.
• I drove the car to New York.
• I drove New York the car.
• In other languages
• The goal may not be able to become a direct
  object. (Romance languages)
• The goal may become a direct object in the
  presence of an applicative morpheme. (Bantu
  languages)

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Transitivity Alternations and Semantic Classes
Examples

• Spray-Load Alternation filling and covering.
• Sam sprayed the wall with paint.
• Sam sprayed paint on the wall.
• Sam loaded the truck with hay.
• Sam loaded hay onto the truck.

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Transitivity Alternations and Semantic Classes
Examples

• There Insertion stative, appearing
• Problems exist.
• There exist problems.
• A ghost appeared.
• There appeared a ghost.
• The students worked.
• There worked some students.
• The students disappeared.
• There disappeared some students.

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Transitivity Alternations and Semantic Classes
Examples

• Locative subjects
• Bees swarmed in the garden.
• The garden swarmed with bees.
• Temporal subjects
• 1990 saw the fall of the government.

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Transitivity Alternations and Semantic Classes
Examples

• Middle Telic verbs? (see below)
• You can cut this bread.
• This bread cuts easily.
• You can sell these books easily.
• These books sell well.
• People like these books.
• These books like well.

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Transitivity Alternations and Semantic Classes
Examples

• Resultative Secondary Predication theme version
• Sam hammered the nail.
• Sam hammered the nail flat.
• The lake froze.
• The lake froze solid.

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Transitivity Alternations and Semantic Classes
Examples

• Resultative Secondary Predication agent version
• He screamed himself hoarse.
• He cried himself to sleep.

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Class shifts

• Manner of motion to change of location
• The bottle floated.
• The bottle floated into the cave.
• The ball bounced.
• The ball bounced across the room.
• Sound to change of location
• The car rumbled.
• The car rumbled down the street.
• The dress rustled.
• She rustled across the room.

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How universal?

• How universal is argument structure?
• If an English word has an agent and a patient,
  will the translation-equivalent in another
  language have an agent and patient?
• If an English word has a subject and object, will
  the translation-equivalent in another language
  have a subject and object?
• Less likely
• I met him.
• I met with him.

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How Universal?

• How universal are alternations and semantic
  classes?
• If an English word undergoes a transitivity
  alternation, will the translation equivalent in
  another language undergo the same transitivity
  alternation?
• Even less likely. (Mitamura, 1989)

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Importance of Transitivity Alternations in
Language Technologies

• For any task that requires understanding
  (question answering, information extraction,
  machine translation) you need to know the
  semantic roles of the NPs.
• The glass broke. (subject is patient)
• The kids ate. (subject is agent)
• I gave them some books (object is recipient)

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Importance of Transitivity Alternations in
Language Technologies

• So you need multiple lexical mappings for each
  verb
• break lt agent patientgt
• subj obj
• break lt patient gt
• subj
• give lt agent theme recipientgt
• subj obj obl
• give lt agent theme recipientgt
• subj obj2 obj

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Importance of Transitivity Alternations in
Language Technologies

• To speed up lexicon acquisition, assigning a verb
  to a semantic class and automatically generating
  its alternations is faster than listing all of
  its lexical mappings by hand.
• I gave books to the students.
• I gave the students books.
• Books were given to the students.
• The students were given books.
• There were books given to the students.
• There were students given books.

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Lexical Aspect

• State
• The clock sat on the shelf.
• Activity
• The children painted.
• Accomplishment
• The children walked to school.
• Achievement
• The ambassador arrived in Moscow.

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Lexical Aspect

• Took examples from this web page
  http//www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/322/322.event.cl
  ass.htm
• Vendler, Linguistics in Philosophy, 1967
• Dowty, Word Meaning and Montague Grammar, 1979
• Tenny, Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics
  Interface, 1994

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Activities and Accomplishments

• Activity
• The children painted for an hour.
• ?The children painted in an hour.
• The children will paint in an hour.
• They will start in an hour.
• The children almost painted.
• Almost started painting
• Test for telicity
• If you start to paint and stop, you have painted.
• Fails test for telicity.

• Accomplishment
• ?The children walked to school for an hour.
• The children walked to school in an hour.
• The children will walk to school in an hour.
• They will start in an hour, or it will take an
  hour.
• The children almost walked to school.
• Almost started walking, or almost reached school
• Test for telicity
• If you start to walk to school and stop, you may
  not have walked to school.
• Passes test for telicity.

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Telicity

• Telic has a goal or endpoint (accomplishment)
• Atelic does not have a goal or endpoint
  (activity)
• Telicity can change depending on the sentence
• He built houses for a year/in a year.
• He built a house in a year/?for a year.

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Achievements

• The ambassador almost arrived in Moscow.
• Only means almost finished not almost started.

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States (English)

• Stative Simple present tense means present
  time. Present progressive does not sound good.
• He knows the answer.
• He is knowing the answer.
• Non-stative Simple present tense means habitual
  or generic. Present progressive means present
  time.
• He paints.
• He is painting.

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Consequences of Lexical Aspect for Language
Technologies

• English
• You have to know the lexical aspect of the verb
  in order to know what the tense morphemes mean.
• The simple present tense means habitual with a
  non-stative verb, but means present time with a
  stative verb.
• You have to know the lexical aspect of the verb
  in order to know what the adverbials mean.
• Almost can mean almost started, almost
  finished, or both.

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Consequences of Telicity

• Japanese
• Telic verbs with te iru have a resultative
  meaning
• Aite iru is open or has been opened, not is
  opening
• Otite iru is dropped (is on the floor), not is
  dropping (unless it takes a very long time to
  fall, like a leaf falling off of a sky scraper)
• Atelic verbs with te iru have a progressive
  meaning
• Tabete iru is eating, not has eaten

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Consequences of Telicity

• Japanese -te aru (with passive-like meaning)
  only applies to telic verbs because it focuses on
  a resulting state. (e.g., wash (arau), but not
  praise (homeru))
• Sara ga aratte aru.
• Plate subj wash
• ???Taroo ga homete aru.

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Consequences of Telicity Finnish

• Angelica Kratzer, Telicity and the Meaning of
  Objective Case, International Round Table The
  Syntax and Semantics of Aspect, Universite de
  Paris, Nov. 2000.
• Telic direct object can have partitive or
  accusative case (with a slight difference in
  meaning)
• Ammu-i-n karhu-a
• Shoot-past-1sg bear-part
• I shot at a/the bear
• Ammu-i-n karhu-n
• Shoot-past-1sg bear-acc
• I shot the bear
• Atelic can only have partitive case despise,
  admire, envy, love, study, play, listen, pull

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Consequences of Telicity Chinese

• Lisa Lai Shen Cheng, Aspects of the
  Ba-Construction, Lexicon Project Working Papers
  24, Carol Tenny (ed.), MIT, 1988.
• Ta ba shu mai le.
• He BA book sell ASP
• He sold the book
• Factors determining grammaticality of the
  ba-construction
• Aspect markers occurs with le and zhe, but not
  with zai and guo.
• Definiteness The direct object has to be
  interpretable as definite.
• Telicity of the verb tui le (pushed) vs. tui
  dao le (pushed down push-fall) la le (pull) vs.
  la dao le (pull down pull-fall) dai le
  (bring/carry) vs. dai lai le (bring here
  carry-come)

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Ba and Telicity

• Wo ba Lisì tui-le.
• I BA Lisi push-ASP
• I pushed Lisi.
• Wo ba Lisì tui-dao-le.
• I BA Lisi push-fall ASP
• I pushed Lisi and he fell.

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Ba and Telicity

• Ta ba Zhangsan la-le.
• He BA Zhangsan pull-ASP
• He pulled Zhangsan.
• Ta ba Zhangsan la-dao-le.
• He BA Zhangsan pull-fall-ASP
• He pulled Zhangsan and Zhangsan fell.

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Ba and Telicity

• Ta ba dìan-nao dài-le.
• He BA computer bring-ASP
• He brought the computer.
• (Does this really mean He carried the
  computer?)
• Ta ba dìan-nao dài-lái-le.
• He BA computer bring-come-ASP
• He brought the computer here.

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Ba and Telicity

• Ta ba fángjian da-sao-le.
• He BA room hit-sweep-ASP
• He cleaned the room.
• Ta ba fángjian da-sao de hen ganjìng.
• He BA room hit-sweep DE very clean
• He cleaned the room and the result is that the
  room is very clean.

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Two kinds of intransitive verbs subject is
agentive or not

• Sam worked.
  agentive
• Sam fell (by accident). non-agentive
• Unaccusative an intransitive verb whose subject
  is not agentive.
• Because the noun phrase would have been
  accusative if the verb were transitive?
• Unergative an intransitive verb whose subject is
  agentive.
• Because the noun phrase would have been ergative
  if the verb were transitive?
• Confusing terminology by David Perlmutter and
  Paul Postal.
• Highly influential and insightful contribution to
  linguistic theory also by David Perlmutter and
  Paul Postal.

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Consequences of Unaccusativity or Agentivity

• English Resultative secondary predication
• He screamed hoarse.
• ?He worked to exhaustion.
• He worked himself to exhaustion
• It broke to pieces.
• It froze solid.

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Consequences of Unaccusativity or Agentivity
German Impersonal Passive

• http//www.wm.edu/CAS/modlang/gasmit/grammar/passi
  ve/impspass.htm
• Hier wird nicht geparkt.
• No parking here.
• Im Gang wird nicht geraucht.
• No smoking in the corridor.
• Es wurde viel getanzt und gesungen.
• There was lots of dancing and singing.
• Works with agentive verbs only.
• Not with break, fall, etc.

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Consequences of Unaccusativity Italian partitive
clitics

• http//www.sfu.ca/person/dearmond/405/405.ergative
  .unaccusative.htm
• Sono passate tre settimane.
• Are passed three weeks
• Three weeks have passed.
• Ne sono passate tre.
• Of-them are passed three
• Three of them have passed.
• Ne sono arrivati(?) tre.
• Of-them are arrived three
• Three of them have arrived.
• Ne hanno telefonato(?) tre.
• Of-them have phoned three
• Three of them have arrived.

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Importance of unaccusativity

• Non agentive subjects, direct object, subjects of
  passives
• The water froze solid.
• He hammered the nail flat.
• The nail was hammered flat.
• Agentive subjects and subjects of active,
  transitive verbs.
• He hammered the nail exhausted.
• Doesnt mean that he became exhausted as a result
  of hammering the nail.
• He screamed hoarse.
• Doesnt mean that he became hoarse as a result of
  screaming.

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Importance of Unaccusativity

• Non-agentive subjects behave like direct objects.
  
• Passive subjects correspond to direct objects of
  active sentences.
• The Unaccusative Hypothesis (Perlmutter and
  Postal) Maybe non-agentive subjects are direct
  objects at some level of representation.

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Example of insight from the unaccusative
hypothesis

• Why cant German unaccusative verbs become
  impersonal passives?
• They are already passive! The non-agentive
  subject was at some point an object that got
  promoted.

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An additional observation

• Theme and patient arguments alternate between
  being in subject position and being in object
  position
• Sam broke the glass.
• The glass broke.
• Problems exist.
• There exist problems.
• Many people dwell in this village.
• In this village dwell many people.
• Agents do not alternate between being subject and
  object. They are always subjects in active
  sentences and obliques in passive sentences.

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Accounting for the observation

• Chomsky
• Themes and patients start out in object position
  in deep structure. They move up to subject
  position if it is open.
• Agents originate in subject position.
• Movement is in only one direction up from
  object to subject (so that the NP c-commands the
  place it came from).

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Accounting for the observation

• Bresnan
• Themes and patients are linked to an
  underspecified grammatical function (L. Levin,
  1986).
• There can be exactly one subject for each verb.
• The underspecified function can fully specified
  as subject or object, depending on whether the
  subject function has already been taken or not.