Why *Sarah cannot glow the light bulb? Accounting for the constructional behavior of light and sound emission verbs

This article provides an in-depth lexical-constructional account of two English verbal classes, namely light and sound emission, with special emphasis on the causative-inchoative alternation, the resultative and the intransitive motion constructions. To shed light on the kinds of constructional realization for these verb classes, I will follow and build on previous taxonomic work by Levin (1993) and Faber and Mairal (1999), which will be complemented by the analytical and explanatory tools developed by the Lexical Constructional Model (Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal, 2007, 2008; Mairal and Ruiz de Mendoza, 2008, 2009). Levin and Rappaport Hovav (1995) show that internally caused verbs can only participate in the inchoative construction (cf. The stars twinkled in the black sky, Blood gurgled in his throat) whereas externally caused verbs can occur in the causative configuration (cf. He winked the light, She jangled her car keys). Nevertheless, a serious problem for the internal cause generalization stems from the fact that intransitive light emission verbs can also express a light produced by an entity whose surface is in contact with a natural light source (cf. The jewel sparkled in the sun)

Accounting for causal constructions within the framework of the Lexical Constructional Model

Este artículo se propone examinar las construcciones de causalidad, centrándose en una clase verbal en particular, a saber, los verbos de cambio de estado específico. El paso más importante consiste en encontrar un marco teórico capaz de dar cuenta del complejo comportamiento sintáctico de estos verbos y de lograr un equilibrio entre las configuraciones de bajo y alto nivel. El presente estudio también demuestra que los constrictores externos formulados por el Modelo Léxico Construccional constituyen herramientas analíticas útiles para la subsunción de esta clase verbal en la construcción intransitiva de causalidad. Los constrictores externos se refieren a mecanismos cognitivos como la metáfora y la metonimia de alto nivel. Estos producen un cambio en la perspectiva de un predicado que le permite subsumirse fácilmente en una construcción dada. This article sets out to examine causal constructions by focusing on a particular verbal class, namely, entity-specific change-of-state verbs. The most important step consisted in finding a theoretical framework capable of accounting for the intricate syntactic behavior of these verbs and of giving equal importance to the contribution of both lower-level and high-level configurations. The present study also shows that the external constraints formulated by the Lexical Constructional Model constitute useful analytical tools for the integration of this verbal class into the intransitive causal construction. The external constraints involve cognitive mechanisms such as high-level metaphor and metonymy, which produce a change in perspective of a lexical predicate and allow it to be easily subsumed into a given construction

FrameNet and its limitations. The case of entity-specific change-of-state verbs

This article examines the proposals made by the FrameNet project (Atkins, Fillmore and Johnson 2003; Fillmore, Johnson and Petruck 2003) with regard to Levin's (1993) entity-specific change-of-state verbs. We have identified several limitations in this database: (i) only a small number of entity-specific change-of¬state verbs were listed in FrameNet (eight out of twenty-one verbs); (ii) there is a separation of the causative and inchoative uses of a verb into two different frames; (iii) in some cases no examples are provided for the Frame Elements of a particular verb (e.g. there are no examples for the verb swell in the 'expansion' and 'change of position on a scale' frames); (iv) usually FrameNet includes literal instantiations of the predicates under consideration and when figurative uses are listed no cognitive motivation is given for these metaphorical expressions; (v) often frames are incomplete owing to the use of a small size corpus (i.e. the British National Corpus), which offers a limited number of examples for a given verb. It will also be shown that metaphor and metonymy play a crucial role in regulating the subsumption processes between predicates and constructions

A lexical-constructional approach to light and sound emission verbs

Este artículo presenta un detallado análisis léxico-construccional de las clases verbales de emisión de luz y sonido (por ej. destellar, retumbar). El presente trabajo estudia la integración de estas clases verbales en la alternancia causativa-incoativa, la construcción resultativa, la construcción intransitiva de movimiento y la construcción conativa. Este estudio se ha llevado a cabo en el marco del Modelo Léxico Construccional (MLC), propuesto por Ruiz de Mendoza y Mairal (2008, 2011). El MLC. El MLC ha desarrollado una serie de restricciones internas y externas que definen las condiciones para la integración léxico-construccional o subsunción. Las restricciones internas están basadas en la compatibilidad entre los predicados y las construcciones mientras que las restricciones externas suponen mecanismos cognitivos cómo la metáfora o metonimia de alto nivel. De este modo, la posibilidad de usar el verbo de emisión de sonido sonar en la construcción causativa (Yo hice sonar el timbre) está motivada por la metonimia de alto nivel RESULTADO DIRECTO/INMEDIATO (PRODUCCIÓN DE SONIDO) POR ACCIÓN DIRECTA/INMEDIATA. This article presents an in-depth lexical-constructional analysis of the verb classes of light and sound emission verbs (e.g. flash, rumble). The present research studies the integration of these verbal classes in the causative-inchoative alternation, the resultative, the intransitive motion and the conative constructions. This study has been carried out from the perspective of the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM), as put forward by Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal (2008, 2011). The LCM has developed a set of internal and external constraints that define the conditions for lexical-constructional integration or subsumption. Internal constraints are based on the compatibility of predicates and constructions, while external constraints involve cognitive mechanisms like high-level metaphor and metonymy. Thus, the use of the sound emission verb buzz in the causative construction (I buzzed the bell) is licensed by the high-level metonymy DIRECT/IMMEDIATE RESULT (i.e. SOUND PRODUCTION) FOR DIRECT/IMMEDIATE ACTIO

How an idea germinates into a project or the intransitive resultative construction with entity-specific change-of-state verbs

This study discusses how seven of Levin's (1993) entity-specific change-of-state verbs (i.e. bloom, blossom, flower, germinate, sprout, swell, and blister) are subsumed into the intransitive resultative construction by highlighting and making use of the external and internal constraints proposed by the Lexical Constructional Model (LCM; Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal 2007). External constraints refer to cognitive mechanisms, such as high-level metaphor and/or metonymy whereas internal constraints are concerned with the encyclopedic and event structure makeup of verbs. The Internal Variable Conditioning constraint is at work when the information encapsulated by a predicate determines the choice of the Z element in an intransitive resultative construction. The semantic makeup of the verb swell and the entity undergoing swelling constrain the nature of the resultant entity Z which must be bigger in size or have a bigger value than the Y element (e.g. The work, which was originally meant to consist only of a few sheets, swelled into ten volumes)

How conceptual structure impinges on constructional behavior. The case of give verbs

This article aims to cast light on the constructional behavior of nine of Levin's (1993) give verbs, i.e. feed, lease, lend, loan, pay, peddle, rent, sell, and trade, in the ditransitive and dative constructions. This paper also proposes onomasiological hierarchies for these verbs on the basis of Faber and Mairal's (1999) lexematics-oriented taxonomies. My findings concur with Levin' (1993) and Faber and Mairal's (1999) hypothesis according to which the internal semantic parameters of a given verb function as predictors of that verb's syntactic representations. In a hierarchy of predicates, the hyponyms display the same complementation patterns as their genus or superordinate predicate. Nevertheless, some verbs inherit partial semantic and syntactic behavior from more than one lexical class. A verb like trade inherits conceptual structure both from give (cf. They traded him to the Cubs) and exchange (e.g. Jason traded Thomas his laptop for a mobile phone)

Digging up the frequency of phrasal verbs in English for the Police: the case of up

The present study focuses on the frequency of phrasal verbs with the particle up in the context of crime and police investigative work. This research emerges from the need to enlarge McCarthy and O'Dell's (2004) scope from purely criminal behavior to police investigative actions. To do so, we relied on a corpus of 504,124 running words made up of spoken dialogues extracted from the script of the American TV series Castle shown on ABC since 2009. Based on Rudzka-Ostyn's (2003) cognitive motivations for the particle up, we have identified five different meaning extensions for our phrasal verbs. Drawing from these findings, we have designed pedagogical activities for those L2 learners that study English at the Police Academy

Basics of ontology modeling in FunGramKB. The case of burn.

El objetivo de este trabajo de investigación es doble. En primer lugar, se analizan las ventajas de un enfoque conceptualista para la representación de significado dentro del marco del sistema de procesamiento de lenguaje natural (PLN) denominado FunGramKB (Periñán y Arcas 2004, 2005, 2006; Periñán y Mairal, 2009ab, 2010, entre muchos otros). FunGramKB soluciona muchos de los problemas encontrados en las bases de datos relacionales en el sentido de que proporciona información morfosintáctica y pragmática sobre las unidades léxicas, evita la dependencia del lenguaje mediante el uso de conceptos y minimiza la redundancia mediante el agrupamiento cognitivo. En segundo lugar, se ofrece una descripción de la modelación ontológica de conceptos relacionados con el verbo de cambio de estado 'quemar'. FunGramKB es una base de conocimiento inestimable que podría servir para el desarrollo de numerosas aplicaciones de procesamiento de lenguaje natural, a saber sistemas inteligentes de pregunta-respuesta o recuperación de información entre lenguas. The aim of the present study is two-fold. Firstly, we discuss the advantages of a conceptual approach to meaning representation within the framework of a multipurpose Natural Language Processing (NLP) system known as FunGramKB (Periñán and Arcas, 2004, 2005, 2006; Periñán and Mairal, 2009ab, 2010, to name a few). FunGramKB solves some of the problems encountered in relational databases in that it provides morphosyntactic and pragmatic information about lexical units, it avoids language dependency by working with concepts and not words, and it minimizes redundancy by cognitive clustering. Secondly, we offer an outline of the ontological modeling of concepts related to the change-of-state verb burn. FunGramKB is an invaluable knowledge base that can be later used for the development of numerous NLP applications, such as intelligent question-answer systems or cross-linguistic information retrieval applications

Accounting for the constructional behavior of "Fetch", "Find", "Gather" and "Reach"

This article aims to shed light on the different kinds of constructional realization for the verbs “fetch,” “find,” “gather” and “reach” by contrasting them with “bring,” “search,” “collect,” and “extend” respectively in the ditransitive and the dative constructions. To this end, I will make use of Levin’s lexical semantics and the explanatory tools developed by the Lexical Constructional Model (henceforth LCM), as proposed by Ruiz de Mendoza and Mairal (“Levels”; “Constraints”). The LCM has developed a set of internal and external constraints that define the conditions for lexical-constructional integration or subsumption.Este artículo se propone arrojar luz sobre los distintos tipos de realización construccional para los verbos “ir a por”, “encontrar”, “recoger” y “alcanzar”, contrastándolos con “traer”, “buscar”, “reunir” y “extender” en la construcción ditransitiva y la construcción dativa. Con este fin, usaré la semántica léxica de Levin y las herramientas explicativas desarrolladas por el Modelo Léxico Construccional (MLC), propuesto por Ruiz de Mendoza y Mairal (“Levels”; “Constraints”). El MLC ha desarrollado una serie de restricciones internas y externas que definen las condiciones para la integración léxico-construccional o subsunción