Skip to main content
SpringerLink
Log in

Sublexical Modality And The Structure Of Lexical Semantic Representations

  • Published:
Linguistics and Philosophy Aims and scope Submit manuscript

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”.

This is a preview of subscription content, log in via an institution to check access.

Access this article

Log in via an institution

Price excludes VAT (USA)
Tax calculation will be finalised during checkout.

Instant access to the full article PDF.

Institutional subscriptions

Similar content being viewed by others

REFERENCES

  • Alsina, A.: 1996, The Role of Argument Structure in Grammar, CSLI Publications, Stanford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Barwise, J. and J. Perry: 1983, Situations and Attitudes, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Bresnan, Joan (ed.): 1982, The Mental Representation of Grammatical Relations, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carpenter, B.: 1992, The Logic of Typed Feature Structures, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Carter, R.: 1976, ‘Some Constraints on Possible Words’, Semantikos 1, 27–66.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chierchia, G.: 1995, The Dynamics of Meaning, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Chomsky, N.: 1981, Lectures on Government and Binding, Foris, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Davis, A. and J.-P. Koenig: 2000, ‘Linking as Constraints onWord Classes in a Hierarchical Lexicon’, Language 76, 56–91.

    Google Scholar 

  • de Swart, H.: 1998, ‘Aspect Shift and Coercion’, Natural Language and Theory 16, 347–385.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dowty, D.: 1979, Word Meaning and Montague Grammar, Reidel, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • Dowty, D.: 1991, ‘Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection’, Language 67, 547–619.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fillmore, C.: 1977, ‘The Case for Case Reopened’, in P. Cole and J. Sadock (eds.), Grammatical Relations, pp. 59–81, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • Fillmore, C.: 1982, ‘Frame semantics’, in The Linguistic Society of Korea (ed.), Linguistics in the Morning Calm, pp. 111–137, Hanshin Publishing Co., Seoul.

    Google Scholar 

  • Foley, W. and R. Van Valin: 1984, Functional Syntax and Universal Grammar, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Gawron, J. M.: 1986, ‘Situations and Prepositions’, Linguistics and Philosophy 9, 327–382.

    Google Scholar 

  • Goldberg, A.: 1995, Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Green, G.: 1974, Semantics and Syntactic Regularity, Indiana University Press, Bloomington.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Grimshaw, J.: 1990, Argument Structure, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Heim, I.: 1983, ‘On the Projection Problem for Presuppositions’, in D. Flickinger et al. (eds.), WCCFL 2, pp. 114–125, Stanford University Press, Stanford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Horn, L.: 1989, A Natural History of Negation, University of Chicago Press, Chicago.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackendoff, R.: 1972, Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackendoff, R.: 1976, ‘Toward an Explanatory Semantic Representation’, Linguistic Inquiry 7, 89–150.

    Google Scholar 

  • Jackendoff, R.:1983, Semantics and Cognition, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

  • Jackendoff, R.: 1990, Semantic Structures, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Langacker, R.: 1987, Foundations of Cognitive Grammar, vol.1, Stanford University Press, Stanford.

    Google Scholar 

  • Larson, R. K.: 1988, ‘Implicit Arguments in Situation Semantics’, Linguistics and Philosophy 11, 169–201.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Lewis, D.: 1973, Counterfactuals, Harvard University Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Moens, M. and M. Steedman: 1988, ‘Temporal Ontology and Temporal Reference’, Computational Linguistics 14, 15–28.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pesetsky, D.: 1982, Paths and Categories, Ph.D. thesis, MIT, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Pesetsky, D.: 1995, Zero Syntax, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Sag, I. and C. Pollard: 1991, ‘An Integrated Theory of Complement Control’, Language 67, 63–113.

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle, J.: 1969, Speech Act, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Searle, J. and D. Vanderveken: 1985, Foundations of Illocutionary Logic, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

    Google Scholar 

  • Stalnaker, R.: 1978, ‘Assertion’, in P. Cole (ed.), Syntax and Semantics vol. 9: Pragmatics, pp. 315–322, Academic Press, New York.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Talmy, L.: 1988, ‘Force Dynamics in Language and Cognition’, Cognitive Science 12, 49–100.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Talmy, L.: 2000, Toward a Cognitive Semantics, MIT Press, Cambridge, MA.

    Google Scholar 

  • Tenny, C.: 1994, Aspectual Roles and the Syntax-Semantics Interface, Kluwer, Dordrecht.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Van Valin, R.: 1990, ‘Semantic Parameters of Split Intransitivity’, Language 66, 221–260.

    Google Scholar 

  • van Voorst, J.: 1992, ‘The Aspectual Semantics of Psychological Verbs’, Linguistics and Philosophy 15, 65–92.

    Google Scholar 

  • 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.

    Google Scholar 

  • Wechsler, S.: 1995b, The Semantic Basis of Argument Structure, CSLI Publications, Stanford.

    Google Scholar 

Download references

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. University at Buffalo, State University of New York, USA

    Jean-Pierre Koenig

  2. AnswerLogic, Inc, USA

    Anthony R Davis

Authors
  1. Jean-Pierre Koenig
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Anthony R Davis
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Rights and permissions

Reprints 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

Download citation

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1023/A:1005616002948

Keywords

Search

Navigation