Lexical Semantics 4

1. Preliminaries

The contribution of GG to lexical semantics has been manifold:

(1)

a) proposing the concept of mental lexicon and thus laying stress on the manner in which lexical knowledge is stored and acquired; the generative tradition is an intrinsic part of the cognitivist paradigm.

b) elaborating and refining a notion of lexical entry;

c) describing the manner in which the lexicon stores syntactic features as well as the manner in which syntactic information is used in syntax (the projection of lexical items)

d) very generally an important component of various formal approaches to grammar is negotiating the boundary between syntax and the lexicon.

2. Katz and Fodor (1963): "Towards a Semantic Description of English"

This is the first attempt of explicitly coupling grammatical and semantic description. Recall that the Grammar had three components in the following organization, whereby the Semantic Component operated on the Deep Structure produced by phrase structure rules:

Semantic Component

Deep Structure

(2) Syntactic Component

Surface Structure

Phonologic Component

The semantic component consists of two elements:

a. a lexicon that provides a "meaning" for each lexical item

b. a finite set of projection rules, which assign readings to syntactic phrases by combining the readings assigned to their constituents.

It is the form of lexical entries that we are concerned with in a discussion of CA, since it directly embodies a form of componential analysis. Where K&F innovate is in that they propose a classification of semantic markers, which is of interest in the articulation of grammar and semantics.

Each lexical entry contains the following types of markers:

(3)

a. grammatical markers, specifically the categorial and sub-categorial features (the c-selection feature);e.g. +N, +V, + -- NP, etc.

b. semantic markers are the features which characterize more than one item; these features express similarities between items and therefore they show those aspects of the meaning which are in fact systematic and uncover the structure of content; e.g., [+ Animate], [+ Colour], [+State], [+Gradable];

c. distinguishers a marker which reflects the idiosyncratic element in each lexical element; the presence of a distinguisher shows the irreducible nature of words. Lexical items are not equivalent with componential definition

d. selectional features, the fourth type of information provided by the dictionary refer tot the combinatorial abilities of lexical items: arguments are s-selected; modifiers s-select the modifee; e.g., drink ? + -- < LIQUID>NP.

Notational conventions: semantic markers = ( )

distinguishers = [ ]

selectional restrictions = < >

On semantic markers and distinguishers

a. In principle the distinction is hard to maintain in particular cases, because it would presuppose, in principle, an exhaustive analysis of the language to establish the non-systematic features, which characterize only one item.

b. The distinction is not without theoretical interest: Semantic distinctions expressible in terms of markers or classemes, such as, ?person, ?become, ?human, ?animal, ?furniture, etc. have certain characteristic properties:

(i) they are readily identifiable across languages, being less language-dependent than contrasts which require distinguishers to be described; the meanings of bachelor above corroborate that point.

(ii) such contrasts may be relevant for the lexical and grammatical system of the language, often being lexicalized or grammaticalized: For instance, English embodies the [ ?person ] distinction in its pronominal system through contrasts like: someone/ something, nobody/ nothing, etc. The feature [ ? cause] is lexicalized in pairs like kill/ die; bring/ come (They brought him here/ He came here), take to/ go to, (They took me there. I went there ), [ ? become] is embodied in pairs like: red/redden; black/ blacken, etc.

(4) bachelor

|

+Noun grammatical

markers

[Det ---]

(human) (animal) semantic

markers

(male) (male)

(adult) (young)

(young)

(never married) (knigh)t

(seal)

[serving under [having the first [when without distinguishers

the banner of another] or lowest academic a mate during

degree] the breeding

season selectional

restrictions

(iii) It has also been proposed that semantic markers, therefore those features which are repeatable in a language and translatable cross-linguistically are taken from a set of semantic universals.