1. Lexical Semantics Fall 2004

2. Lexicon Collection of Words Collection of Words Mental store of information about words and morphemes Mental store of information about words and morphemes

3. Word A Form-meaning pair A Form-meaning pair Form: string of symbols Form: string of symbols Meaning: conceptual unit Meaning: conceptual unit –Defined within a cultural background –Psychologically real –Being Shaped and shaping the cognitive system Universal vs. language-specific concepts Universal vs. language-specific concepts

4. Lexical Semantics Accounts for: Polymorphic nature of language Polymorphic nature of language Semanticality Semanticality Creative use of words Creative use of words Co-compositional Representation Co-compositional Representation

5. Two assumptions Appreciation of syntactic structure Appreciation of syntactic structure –Looking for syntactically relevant semantic features Meanings of words reflect the deeper structure of conceptual system Meanings of words reflect the deeper structure of conceptual system

6. Three principles Semantic well-formedness. Semantic well-formedness. Richer representation than semantic role list Richer representation than semantic role list Complete study of all lexical categories, not just verbs Complete study of all lexical categories, not just verbs

7. Goal To adequately classify the lexical items of a language into classes predictive of their syntactic and semantic expression To adequately classify the lexical items of a language into classes predictive of their syntactic and semantic expression

8. Classes and Alternations Verbs and Argument alternations Verbs and Argument alternations –Transitive-intransitive alternation (1-6) –Conative construction (7-10) –Indefinite NP deletion (11-16) –Ditransitive-transitive shift (19-24) Verbs and Situation Types Verbs and Situation Types –Activity with for-PP –Accomplishment with in-PP –Achievement with at-pp –State: individual-level vs. stage level

9. Nouns Mass vs. Count nouns Mass vs. Count nouns Individual vs. group nouns Individual vs. group nouns Predicative vs. relational nouns Predicative vs. relational nouns