On the nature of the lexicon: the status of rich lexical meanings

The main goal of this paper is to show that there are many phenomena that pertain to the construction of truth-conditional compounds that follow characteristic patterns, and whose explanation requires appealing to knowledge structures organized in specific ways. We review a number of phenomena, ranging from non-homogenous modification and privative modification to polysemy and co-predication that indicate that knowledge structures do play a role in obtaining truth-conditions. After that, we show that several extant accounts that invoke rich lexical meanings to explain such phenomena face problems related to inflexibility and lack of predictive power. We review different ways in which one might react to such problems as regards lexical meanings: go richer, go moderately richer, go thinner, and go moderately thinner. On the face of it, it looks like moderate positions are unstable, given the apparent lack of a clear cutoff point between the semantic and the conceptual, but also that a very thin view and a very rich view may turn out to be indistinguishable in the long run. As far as we can see, the most pressing open questions concern this last issue: can there be a principled semantic/world knowledge distinction? Where could it be drawn: at some upper level (e.g. enriched qualia structures) or at some basic level (e.g. constraints)? How do parsimony considerations affect these two different approaches? A thin meanings approach postulates intermediate representations whose role is not clear in the interpretive process, while a rich meanings approach to lexical meaning seems to duplicate representations: the same representations that are stored in the lexicon would form part of conceptual representations. Both types of parsimony problems would be solved by assuming a direct relation between word forms and (parts of) conceptual or world knowledge, leading to a view that has been attributed to Chomsky (e.g. by Katz 1980) in which there is just syntax and encyclopedic knowledge

Complementarity and division of labor between endo and exocentric languages. The case of Danish and Spanish

This paper is based on comparative data on Danish and Spanish, and argues that systematic variations between the word formation (Müller 2013) and syntactic pat terns dominating these two languages correlate with deep rooted lexical differences between endocentric (Germanic) and exocentric (Romance) languages. The paper follows the lexical typological assumption that endo and exocentric languages complementarily distributesemantic information on the two major word classes, nouns and verbs (e.g. Baron & Herslund 2005; Baron et al . 2019; Korzen 2016). Whereas the former concentrate information in the main verb and leave the nominal arguments underspecified, the latter act oppositely, that is, they tend to use general verbs (e.g. Herslund 2014; Müller 2014, 2019) and specific nouns. With respect to word formation, a consequence of the vagueness of endocentric nouns, and, thus, their hyperonymic level lexicalization, is that in order to designate entities at a hyponymic level, the Germanic languages tend to use the composition system. In contrast, exocentric nouns are already semantically saturated, so presumably the Romance languages have not developed a completesystem of morphological composition to tackle the task of creating lexical hierarchies. In these languages, either the sema ntic components are already encapsulated in the simple noun, or they use an alternative strategy, namely, derivation. Therefore, composition in the Romance languages has not generally been routinized as part of a morphological system, but has the status of a syntactic device, prototypically following the formative pattern [N prep. N]. As regards syntactic patterns, the high level of specificity of Danish verbs correlates with a structural flexibility that allows inherently intransitive, manner expressing ac tivity predicates of this language to be constructed telically. In contrast, the possibility of constructing telic variations of such predicates isgenerally considered a rather marginal phenomenon in the Romance languages (e.g. Korzen 2003: 85 89 and refe rences therein)

Possessives and beyond : semantics and syntax

Recent work on the semantics of possessives has evinced a resurgence of interest in the substantive nature and provenance of the possessive relation (e.g. Barker 1995; Partee and Borschev 1998, 2000a, 2000b; Borschev and Partee 2001; Vikner and Jensen 2002) *. A more systematic account of these relations is made possible by developments in lexical semantic theories, which have given rise to a weakly polymorphic view of the syntax-lexical semantics interface, whereby lexical items are underspecified to some degree, and dependent on the selectional properties of other elements in their immediate syntactic environment (e.g. Pustejovsky 1995, 1998). While various approaches subscribe to some version of these hypotheses, there are important theoretical differences between them with respect to the domain in which knowledge is considered to lie, whether it is encoded in a sort system underlying the lexicon, or whether it is construed as ‘world knowledge’ (cf. Dölling 1995, 1997). This paper endorses the view that the lexicon should be imputed with a limited amount of knowledge, organised as a sort inheritance hierarchy (Pustejovsky 1995). It attempts to extend the approach to possessive relations proposed by Jensen and Vikner (1994, 2004; Vikner and Jensen, 2002), based on the Generative Lexicon, to a particular class of possessive constructions. Such constructions, exemplified by expressions like a women’s magazine, are often ambiguous between a regular, relational interpretation and an alternative ‘modificational’ interpretation. Anticipating the outcome of the analysis, the latter will be referred to as Generic Possessives (GPs). Focusing on data from Maltese, I will show that the possessor NP in these constructions is kind-denoting. I will argue that the GP expresses a relation holding between the entity denoted by the head noun and putative realizations of the kind denoted by the possessor NP.peer-reviewe

On the role of syntactic locality in morphological processes : the case of (Greek) derived nominals

The paper is structured as follows. In section 2, I briefly summarize the facts on English and Greek nominalizations. In section 3, I discuss English nominal derivation in some detail. In section 4, I turn to the question of licensing of AS in nominals. In section 5, I turn to the issue of the optionality of licensing of AS in the nominal system

Aspects in Fengshun Hakka spoken In Thailand: Perfective, Experiential, and Inchoative

This research is part of my dissertation ‘A Study of Hakka Aspectual System’ for Mahidol University and Thailand Research Fund. It aims to explain the syntactic and semantic structures of Perfective, Experiential, and Inchoative aspects of Fengshun Hakka spoken in Thailand. The Hakka aspectual system generally can be divided into two major categories: bounded and unbounded. According to Chappell (1989a, b), the bounded aspect refers to an event containing either the beginning or the end point, while the unbounded aspect refers to an event without a time limit. The bounded situations can be subcategorized into Perfective, Experiential, and Inchoative aspects. To add an interesting view to this study, the Miaoli Hakka dialect spoken in Taiwan, Jieyang Chaozhou, and Mandarin have been compared with the Fengshun dialect to point out real characteristics of the Hakka aspectual system. The comparison with the Miaoli dialect spoken in Taiwan demonstrates how the three bounded aspects of the two Hakka dialects are expressed. The language contact with Chaozhou in Fengshun Hakka is probably pointed out as one factor by which the bounded aspects in Fengshun Hakka are distinguished from those in the Miaoli dialect.Australian National University, Thailand Research Fun

N + N Compounds in German: an Analysis within Role and Reference Grammar

The aim of this paper is to analyze German N + N compounds consisting of nominal roots [hence N + N compounds] within the theory of Role and Reference Grammar [RRG] (Van Valin and LaPolla 1997, Van Valin 2005). The basis for this analysis of German N + N compounds is the Layered Structure of the Word [LSW] as developed in Nolan (2010). The LSW is analogous to the Layered Structure of the Clause [LSC] and the Layered Structure of the Noun Phrase [LSNP] as they are used in RRG. Besides the description of German N + N compounds, this paper investigates the role of the lexicon, the necessity of a semantic structure of lexemes - based on Pustejovsky’s notion of qualia structures (Pustejovsky 1995) - and the use of inheritance hierarchies in a description of inflectional morphology and the use of interfixes. The paper also investigates the use of Constructional Schemas (CSs) as developed in Nolan (2010). These CSs are similar to the syntactic inventory in RRG. With help of CSs, which are part of the semantic representations of lexemes partially based on Pustejovsky’s qualia structures, it will be possible to show how lexical entries for nouns are constructed. These lexical entries are stored in the lexeme store, which is part of the lexicon. The paper will show that the analysis of German N + N compounds based on the use of the LSW is compatible with the RRG-conception of the LSC and the LSNP