Grounding the Lexical Semantics of Verbs in Visual Perception using Force Dynamics and Event Logic

This paper presents an implemented system for recognizing the occurrence of events described by simple spatial-motion verbs in short image sequences. The semantics of these verbs is specified with event-logic expressions that describe changes in the state of force-dynamic relations between the participants of the event. An efficient finite representation is introduced for the infinite sets of intervals that occur when describing liquid and semi-liquid events. Additionally, an efficient procedure using this representation is presented for inferring occurrences of compound events, described with event-logic expressions, from occurrences of primitive events. Using force dynamics and event logic to specify the lexical semantics of events allows the system to be more robust than prior systems based on motion profile

Metaphoric coherence: Distinguishing verbal metaphor from `anomaly\u27

Theories and computational models of metaphor comprehension generally circumvent the question of metaphor versus “anomaly” in favor of a treatment of metaphor versus literal language. Making the distinction between metaphoric and “anomalous” expressions is subject to wide variation in judgment, yet humans agree that some potentially metaphoric expressions are much more comprehensible than others. In the context of a program which interprets simple isolated sentences that are potential instances of cross‐modal and other verbal metaphor, I consider some possible coherence criteria which must be satisfied for an expression to be “conceivable” metaphorically. Metaphoric constraints on object nominals are represented as abstracted or extended along with the invariant structural components of the verb meaning in a metaphor. This approach distinguishes what is preserved in metaphoric extension from that which is “violated”, thus referring to both “similarity” and “dissimilarity” views of metaphor. The role and potential limits of represented abstracted properties and constraints is discussed as they relate to the recognition of incoherent semantic combinations and the rejection or adjustment of metaphoric interpretations

Dual aspectual forms and event structure in Caribbean English Creoles

This book tackles the divisive question of the Stative/Non-stative distinction by going straight to the root of the lexical items that have been at the heart of this discussion. It provides an analysis of property items (Dual Aspectual Forms) couched in the syntax-semantics interface eliminating the false dichotomy at the base of the controversy in the field and the suggestion that a lexical item needs be unambiguously Stative or Non-stative. What we see in this work is theoretical grounding for a flexible group of lexical items comprising both verbs and adjectives underlyingly with allowances made for derivation into either category. The result is a work that is conceptually and theoretically appealing and one that brings consensus

From Physical Motion to ‘Come and Go’: A Spoken Corpus Based Analysis of Kata ‘go’-specific Constructions in Korean

I analyze one of the motion verbs in Korean, kata ‘go,’ and its argument structure constructions. The verb shows an extremely high token frequency and its argument structure constructions have been subject to a great degree of variation in terms of its emergent semantics and syntax. However, there have been recurring issues across the previous studies. First, there is the problem of the so-called “written language bias in linguistics” (Linell, 1982), such that most studies on kata have drawn upon mostly invented sentences or written language data. Secondly, previous studies on kata have focused on the verb itself and have made few efforts on examining the construal of kata as it relates to the argument structure constructions in which the verb appears. Considering what has been pointed out so far, on the basis of contemporary Korean spoken data extracted from Sejong Corpus, the current study aims to establish argument structure constructions focusing on the specification of components, i.e. the subject, the oblique phrase containing the suffix, and kata. Argument structure constructions where kata appears and their components are fully specified are called kata-specific constructions. The objective of this study is to outline the alternations of the argument structure constructions in the physical motion domain, and how and to what extent they are inherited by other semantic domains in accordance with semantic extensions. All the semantic domains are argued to be metaphorically or via constructionalization extended from the physical domain. Further, I aim to examine whether the Principle of Maximized Motivation works or not by virtue of two types of cluster analysis. The first one based on binary coding showed that the metaphorical extension and constructionalization starting from the physical motion domain is not limited to the semantic side, but it also influences how and to what extent the allowed argument structure constructions in the physical motion domain are inherited by other semantic domains. This advocates the Principle of Maximized Motivation. However, the second cluster analysis based on relative frequency showed that abstract motion inherits frequency patterns concerning alternations of argument structure constructions from physical motion to the strongest degree, which weakens the principle

Dual aspectual forms and event structure in Caribbean English Creoles

This book tackles the divisive question of the Stative/Non-stative distinction by going straight to the root of the lexical items that have been at the heart of this discussion. It provides an analysis of property items (Dual Aspectual Forms) couched in the syntax-semantics interface eliminating the false dichotomy at the base of the controversy in the field and the suggestion that a lexical item needs be unambiguously Stative or Non-stative. What we see in this work is theoretical grounding for a flexible group of lexical items comprising both verbs and adjectives underlyingly with allowances made for derivation into either category. The result is a work that is conceptually and theoretically appealing and one that brings consensus

Enhancing FunGramKB: Further Verbs of Feeling in English

The present dissertation aims at analyzing some linguistic aspects related to the lexical, semantic and syntactic behaviour of a number of verbs of FEELING in English whose lexical, grammatical and idiosyncratic properties have been entered into the FunGramKB Editor in application of study of the theoretical assumptions propounded by the Lexical-Constructional Model. Analysis and subsequent input of data have been assessed against the background of some of the 20th-century trends in linguistics which find their expression in the first decade of this century, and the role of semantics in a world in which increasing priority is given to probabilistic, machine-learned output in lexicographic work. From this stance, the generic features contained in the FunGramKB meaning postulates and thematic frames as outlined in the Lexical-Constructional Model bring hope for a more faithful rendering of the semantic relationships established within human expression, while making provisions for a semanticist‟s contribution to refinement and storage of both thorough and extensive knowledge

Grounding Abstract Concepts in Action

Sensory-motor information is linguistically encoded by action verbs. Such verbs are not only used to express action concepts and events, but they are also pervasively exploited in the linguistic representation of abstract concepts and figurative meanings. In the light of several theoretical approaches (i.e., Embodied Theories, Conceptual Metaphor Theory, Image Schema Theory), this paper analyzes the mechanisms that enable action verbs to acquire abstract meanings and that motivate the symmetries (or asymmetries) in the semantic variations of locally equivalent verbs (e.g., premere and spingere; Eng., to press and to push). The research is carried out within the IMAGACT framework and focuses on a set of four Italian action verbs encoding force (i.e., premere, spingere, tirare, and trascinare; Eng., to press, to push, to pull, and to drag). The results confirm that metaphorical extensions of action verbs are constrained by the image schemas involved in the core meaning of the verbs. Additionally, the paper shows that these image schemas are responsible for the asymmetries in the metaphorical variation of action verbs pertaining to the same semantic class (i.e., force)

Directional adposition use in English, Swedish and Finnish

Directional adpositions such as to the left of describe where a Figure is in relation to a Ground. English and Swedish directional adpositions refer to the location of a Figure in relation to a Ground, whether both are static or in motion. In contrast, the Finnish directional adpositions edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) solely describe the location of a moving Figure in relation to a moving Ground (Nikanne, 2003). When using directional adpositions, a frame of reference must be assumed for interpreting the meaning of directional adpositions. For example, the meaning of to the left of in English can be based on a relative (speaker or listener based) reference frame or an intrinsic (object based) reference frame (Levinson, 1996). When a Figure and a Ground are both in motion, it is possible for a Figure to be described as being behind or in front of the Ground, even if neither have intrinsic features. As shown by Walker (in preparation), there are good reasons to assume that in the latter case a motion based reference frame is involved. This means that if Finnish speakers would use edellä (in front of) and jäljessä (behind) more frequently in situations where both the Figure and Ground are in motion, a difference in reference frame use between Finnish on one hand and English and Swedish on the other could be expected. We asked native English, Swedish and Finnish speakers’ to select adpositions from a language specific list to describe the location of a Figure relative to a Ground when both were shown to be moving on a computer screen. We were interested in any differences between Finnish, English and Swedish speakers. All languages showed a predominant use of directional spatial adpositions referring to the lexical concepts TO THE LEFT OF, TO THE RIGHT OF, ABOVE and BELOW. There were no differences between the languages in directional adpositions use or reference frame use, including reference frame use based on motion. We conclude that despite differences in the grammars of the languages involved, and potential differences in reference frame system use, the three languages investigated encode Figure location in relation to Ground location in a similar way when both are in motion. Levinson, S. C. (1996). Frames of reference and Molyneux’s question: Crosslingiuistic evidence. In P. Bloom, M.A. Peterson, L. Nadel & M.F. Garrett (Eds.) Language and Space (pp.109-170). Massachusetts: MIT Press. Nikanne, U. (2003). How Finnish postpositions see the axis system. In E. van der Zee & J. Slack (Eds.), Representing direction in language and space. Oxford, UK: Oxford University Press. Walker, C. (in preparation). Motion encoding in language, the use of spatial locatives in a motion context. Unpublished doctoral dissertation, University of Lincoln, Lincoln. United Kingdo

The language-cognition interface in bilinguals: an evaluation of the conceptual transfer hypothesis

Praca podejmuje temat wpływu języka na kategorie konceptualne u osób dwujęzycznych. Poruszana problematyka omawiana jest na podstawie najnowszych teorii pamięci bilingwalnej oraz stworzonej na ich kanwie hipotezy transferu konceptualnego autorstwa Scotta Jarvisa i Anety Pavlenko. Część teoretyczna przedstawia strukturę pamięci bilingwalnej, zwanej również słownikiem wewnętrznym, modele sfery konceptualnej oraz istniejące pomiędzy poziomem językowym i konceptualnym zależności. Te ostatnie rozpatrywane są przez pryzmat teorii względności językowej i jej zmodyfikowanych wersji: teorii „myślenie dla mowy” (ang. Thinking for Speaking) Dana Slobina, jak również hipotezy Christiane von Stutterheim. Ostatnim elementem dyskusji jest prezentacja hipotezy transferu konceptualnego oraz jej ocena pod kątem merytorycznym i empirycznym. Część badawcza przedstawia dwa projekty zrealizowane zgodnie z zaleceniami autorów hipotezy transferu konceptualnego. Projekt 1. dotyczy kategoryzacji semantycznej oraz niewerbalnej. Badane kategorie semantyczne oparte są na eksplikacjach Anny Wierzbickiej i dotyczą relacji międzyludzkich (przyjaciel, friend, kolega itd.). Projekt 2. to analiza ram konceptualizacyjnych pod kątem wydarzeń przedstawiających ruch ukierunkowany oraz konstrukcji narracji w pisemnych relacjach z obejrzanego filmu animowanego. Uzyskane dane w języku polskim i angielskim stanowią podstawę wniosków, które zaprezentowano w ostatnim rozdziale pracy. Badania przeprowadzono w Polsce i krajach anglojęzycznych (w Anglii i Irlandii). W skład badanych populacji weszli monolingwalni Polacy i rodzimi użytkownicy języka angielskiego (ang. native speakers) oraz Polacy posługujący się językiem angielskim w warunkach naturalnych (emigranci) i szkolnych (studenci filologii angielskiej). Każda z grup monolingwalnych uczestniczyła w sesjach badawczych dotyczących odpowiednio języka polskiego i angielskiego. Osoby dwujęzyczne testowane były w obydwu językach. Dane zebrano za pomocą scenariuszy sytuacyjnych, kwestionariuszy, oceny podobieństwa, a także opisu narracyjnego krótkometrażowego filmu animowanego pt. Katedra w reżyserii Tomasza Bagińskiego