Abstract
This paper argues for a largely unnoted distinction between relational and modal components in the lexical semantics of verbs. Wehypothesize that many verbs encode two kinds of semantic information:a relationship among participants in a situation and a subset ofcircumstances or time indices at which this relationship isevaluated. The latter we term sublexical modality.
We show that linking regularities between semantic arguments andsyntactic functions provide corroborating evidence in favor of thissemantic distinction, noting cases in which the semantic groundingof linking through participant-role properties apparently fails. Thissemantic grounding can be preserved, however, once we abstractaway from sublexical modality in lexical semantic representations.Semantically-based linking constraints are insensitive to the sublexicalmodality component of lexical entries and depend only on informationin a predicator's “situational core”.
Similar content being viewed by others
REFERENCES
Alsina, A.: 1996, The Role of Argument Structure in Grammar, CSLI Publications, Stanford.
Barwise, J. and J. Perry: 1983, Situations and Attitudes, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Bresnan, Joan (ed.): 1982, The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Carpenter, B.: 1992, The Logic of Typed Feature Structures, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Carter, R.: 1976, ‘Some Constraints on Possible Words’, Semantikos 1, 27–66.
Chierchia, G.: 1995, The Dynamics of Meaning, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Chomsky, N.: 1981, Lectures on Government and Binding, Foris, Dordrecht.
Copestake, A., D. Flickinger, and I. A. Sag: 1997, Minimal Recursion Semantics: An Introduction. Department of Linguistics, Stanford University.
Croft, W.: 1991, Syntactic Categories and Grammatical Relations, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Croft, W.: 1998, ‘Event Structure in Argument Linking’, in M. Butt and W. Geuder (eds.), The Projection of Arguments, pp. 21–63, CSLI Publications, Stanford.
Davis, A.: 1996, Lexical Semantics and Linking in the Hierarchical Lexicon. Ph.D. thesis, Stanford University.
Davis, A. and J.-P. Koenig: 1999, ‘Sublexical Modality and Linking Theory’, in K. N. Shahin, S. Blake, and E.-S. Kim (eds.), WCCFL 17, pp. 162–174, CSLI Publications, Stanford.
Davis, A. and J.-P. Koenig: 2000, ‘Linking as Constraints onWord Classes in a Hierarchical Lexicon’, Language 76, 56–91.
de Swart, H.: 1998, ‘Aspect Shift and Coercion’, Natural Language and Theory 16, 347–385.
Dowty, D.: 1979, Word Meaning and Montague Grammar, Reidel, Dordrecht.
Dowty, D.: 1991, ‘Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection’, Language 67, 547–619.
Fillmore, C.: 1968, ‘The Case for Case’, in E. Bach and R. Harms (eds.), Universals in Linguistic Theory, pp. 1–87, Holt, Rinehart and Winston, New York.
Fillmore, C.: 1977, ‘The Case for Case Reopened’, in P. Cole and J. Sadock (eds.), Grammatical Relations, pp. 59–81, Academic Press, New York.
Fillmore, C.: 1982, ‘Frame semantics’, in The Linguistic Society of Korea (ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm, pp. 111–137, Hanshin Publishing Co., Seoul.
Foley, W. and R. Van Valin: 1984, Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Gawron, J. M.: 1986, ‘Situations and Prepositions’, Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 327–382.
Goldberg, A.: 1995, Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Goldberg, A.: 1997, ‘The Relationships between Verbs and Constructions’, in M. Verspoor, K. D. Lee, and E. Sweetser (eds.), Lexical and Syntactical Constructions and the Construction of Meaning, pp. 383–398, John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Green, G.: 1974, Semantics and Syntactic Regularity, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.
Grimshaw, J.: 1981, ‘Form, Function, and the Language Acquisition Device’, in C. L. Baker and J. J. McCarthy (eds.), The Logical Problem of Language Acquisition, pp. 165–182, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Grimshaw, J.: 1990, Argument Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Grimshaw, J.: 1993, Semantic Structure and Semantic Content in Lexical Representation, Department of Linguistics, Rutgers University.
Gropen, J., S. Pinker, M. Hollander, and R. Goldberg: 1991, ‘Affectedness and Direct Objects: The Role of Lexical Semantics in the Acquisition of Verb Argument Structure’, Cognition 41, 153–195.
Heim, I.: 1983, ‘On the Projection Problem for Presuppositions’, in D. Flickinger et al. (eds.), WCCFL 2, pp. 114–125, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Horn, L.: 1989, A Natural History of Negation, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Jackendoff, R.: 1972, Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Jackendoff, R.: 1976, ‘Toward an Explanatory Semantic Representation’, Linguistic Inquiry 7, 89–150.
Jackendoff, R.:1983, Semantics and Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Jackendoff, R.: 1990, Semantic Structures, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Kiparsky, P.: 1987, Morphology and Grammatical Relations, Department of Linguistics, Stanford University.
Koenig, J.-P.: 1994, Lexical Underspecification and the Syntax/Semantics Interface, Ph.D. thesis, University of California at Berkeley.
Koenig, J.-P. and A. Davis: to appear, ‘Linking from the Outside In’, in Texas Linguistic Forum: Perspective on argument structure, Austin, TX.
Kratzer, A.: 1981, ‘The Notional Category of Modality’, in H.-J. Eikmeyer and H. Rieser (eds.), Words, Worlds, and Contexts, pp. 38–74, Walter de Gruyter, Berlin.
Krifka, M.: to appear, ‘Manner in Dative Alternation’, in WCCFL 18, Cascadilla Press, Sommerville, MA.
Lakoff, G.: 1968, ‘Instrumental Adverbs and the Concept of Deep Structure’, Foundations of Language 4, 4–29.
Langacker, R.: 1987, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol.1, Stanford University Press, Stanford.
Larson, R. K.: 1988, ‘Implicit Arguments in Situation Semantics’, Linguistics and Philosophy 11, 169–201.
Levin, B.:1993, English Verb Classes and Alternations, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.
Levin, B. and M. Rappaport Hovav: 1995, Unaccusativity At the Syntax-Lexical Semantics Interface, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Lewis, D.: 1973, Counterfactuals, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.
McCawley, J.: 1988, ‘The Comparative Conditional Construction in English, German, and Chinese’, in S. Axmaker, A. Jaisser, and H. Singmaster (eds.), Proceedings of the 14th Annual Meeting Language of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, pp. 176–187, Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley.
Moens, M. and M. Steedman: 1988, ‘Temporal Ontology and Temporal Reference’, Computational Linguistics 14, 15–28.
Montague, R.:1974, Formal Philosophy, Yale University Press, New Haven.
Oehrle, R.: 1976, The Grammatical Status of the English Dative Alternation, Ph.D. thesis, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Pesetsky, D.: 1982, Paths and Categories, Ph.D. thesis, MIT, Cambridge, MA.
Pesetsky, D.: 1995, Zero Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Pinker, S.:1989, Learnability and Cognition: the Acquisition of Argument Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Pinkham, J.: 1985, The Formation of Comparative Clauses in French and English, Garland, New York.
Portner, P.: 1998, ‘The Progressive in Modal Semantics’, Language 74, 760–787.
Rappaport Hovav, M. and B. Levin: 1998, ‘Building Verb Meanings’, in M. Butt and W. Geuder (eds.), The Projection of Arguments, pp. 97–134, CSLI Publications, Stanford.
Sag, I. and C. Pollard: 1991, ‘An Integrated Theory of Complement Control’, Language 67, 63–113.
Searle, J.: 1969, Speech Act, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Searle, J. and D. Vanderveken: 1985, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.
Stalnaker, R.: 1978, ‘Assertion’, in P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and Semantics vol. 9: Pragmatics, pp. 315–322, Academic Press, New York.
Talmy, L.: 1985, ‘Lexicalization Patterns: Semantic Structure in Lexical Forms’, in T. Shopen (ed.), Language Typology and Syntactic Description, vol. 3, pp. 57–149, Cambridge University Press, New York.
Talmy, L.: 1988, ‘Force Dynamics in Language and Cognition’, Cognitive Science 12, 49–100.
Talmy, L.: 1991, ‘Path to Realization: A Typology of Event Conflation’, in L. Sutton and C. Johnson (eds.), Proceedings of the 17th Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, Berkeley, pp. 480–519, Berkeley Linguistics Society.
Talmy, L.: 2000, Toward a Cognitive Semantics, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.
Tenny, C.: 1994, Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface, Kluwer, Dordrecht.
Van Valin, R.: 1993, ‘A Synopsis of Role and Reference Grammar’, in R. Van Valin (ed.), Advances in Role and Reference Grammar, pp. 1–164, John Benjamins, Amsterdam.
Van Valin, R.: 1990, ‘Semantic Parameters of Split Intransitivity’, Language 66, 221–260.
van Voorst, J.: 1992, ‘The Aspectual Semantics of Psychological Verbs’, Linguistics and Philosophy 15, 65–92.
Wechsler, S.: 1995a, ‘Preposition Selection Outside the Lexicon’, in R. Aranovich, W. Byrne, S. Preuss, and M. Senturia (eds.), WCCFL 13, pp. 416-431, CSLI Publications, Stanford.
Wechsler, S.: 1995b, The Semantic Basis of Argument Structure, CSLI Publications, Stanford.
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Koenig, JP., Davis, A.R. Sublexical Modality And The Structure Of Lexical Semantic Representations. Linguistics and Philosophy 24, 71–124 (2001). https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005616002948
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005616002948