3 LEXICAL SEMANTICS AND SENTENCE SEMNATICS

SEMANTIC CONSTITUENTS
Any constituent part of a sentence that bears a meaning which combines with the meanings of
the other constituents to give the overall meaning of the sentence will be termed a semantic
constituent.

Thus, the meaning of “The cat sat on the mat” is: the + cat + sat + on + the + mat They are
called minimal semantic constituents and they cannot be segmented into more elementary
semantic constituents. These combine in the ways signalled by the syntactic structure to
form semantic constituents. Thus, on the mat is a semantic constituent of the cat sat on the
mat, but not a minimal one.

Hundreds of students were in the train this morning.

Semantic constituents
Hundreds of students were
in the train
this morning Minimal semantic constituents
Hundreds of students
Hundreds-of-students
in the train
in-the-train this morning this-morning

SEMANTIC CONTRAST
Recurrent semantic contrast: A part X of a grammatically well-formed and
semantically normal sentence S1 is a semantic constituent of S1 if

• X can be replaced by another element Y, what then forms a new grammatically

well-formed and semantically normal sentence S2 (similar in syntax, but distinct
in meaning)
• There exists at least one other grammatically well-formed and semantically
normal sentence S3, containing X, but otherwise having no other elements in
parallel syntactic positions in common with S1, in which X is similarly
omissible or replaceable by Y, yielding a syntactically identical but semantically
distinct sentence S4
• The semantic contrast between S1 and S2 is identical to that between S3 and S4.

cat = X dog = Y
S1 = The cat sat on the mat.
S2 = The dog sat on the mat.
S3 = We bought a cat.
S4 = We bought a dog.
SYNTAGMATIC AND PARADIGMATIC

In discourse, words acquire relations based on the linear nature of language because they are
chained together . Combinations supported by linearity are syntagms. In the syntagm a term
acquires its value only because it stands in opposition to everything that precedes or follows it,
or to both.
Outside discourse, on the other hand, words acquire relations of a different kind. Those that
have something in common are associated in memory, resulting groups are marked by diverse
relations.

We see that the co-ordinations formed outside discourse differ strikingly from those formed
inside discourse. Those formed outside discourse are not supported by linearity. Their seat is in
the brain; they are a part of the inner storehouse that makes up the language of each speaker.

➢ SYNTAGMATIC VS PARADIGMATIC

C’’’

C’’

C’
(They are associative relations)
A B C D E

COMPOSITIONALITY
Principle of Compositionality:
The meaning of a whole is derived from the meanings of the parts.
Example: Max ate a green tomato

The compositionality principle relies on knowing:

• The meaning of individual words.
• How the meanings of individual words combine to form the meaning of groups of
words.
• How it all fits in with syntactic analysis.
Problems with a compositional approach:
- to kick the bucket
- to pull somebody’s leg
- to have a bee in one’s bonnet
IDIOMATICITY
Lexicalised expressions or idioms

Degrees of opacity
 Collocations
 Idioms or lexicalized expressions
 Proverbs

COLLOCATIONS
Originally, the term ‘collocation’ was introduced by Firth (1951) as one of the “levels” of
meaning. He distinguished “meaning by collocation” from both the “conceptual or idea
approach to the meaning of words” and “contextua l meaning”.
Firth’s Notion of Collocation:
”Meaning by collocation is an abstraction at the syntagmatic level and is not directly concerned
with the conceptual or idea approach to the meaning of words.''

Choueka’s Notion of Collocation:

"A collocation is defined as a sequence of two or more consecutive words, that has
characteristics of a syntactic and semantic unit, and whose exact and unambiguous meaning
cannot be derived directly from the meaning or connotation of its components." (Choueka 1988)
 Collocations: refers to sequences of lexica l items which
habitually co-occur, but which are
nonetheless fully transparent in the sense that each lexical
constituent is also a semantic constituent. Such expressions as
fine weather, torrential rain, high winds are examples of
collocations.

Examples: hard work, torrential rain.

LEXICALISED EXPRESSIONS OR IDIOMS

They cannot be segmented. They are expressions or phrases whose meanings cannot be
inferred from the meanings of their parts.

Examples: It’s raining cats and dogs.

She was pulling my leg.

In other words, an idiom is an expression whose meaning cannot be accounted for as a

compositional function of the meanings its parts have when they are not parts of idioms.

Example: This will cook Arthur’s goose

The test of recurrent semantic contrast reveals that this, will and Arthur are regular
semantic constituents; the rest, however , i.e. cook ---’s goose, constitutes a minima l
semantic constituent, which as a whole contrasts recurrently with, say, help or destroy.
Cook ---’s goose is therefore an idiom. Any expression which is divisible into semantic
constituents will be regarded as non-idiomatic or semantically transparent.
Examples: He kicked the bucket ≠ He kicked the red bucket

Most idioms are homophonous with grammatically well-formed transparent expressions. A few
are not in this sense well-formed, although some grammatica l structure is normally discernible.
Such cases are often called asyntactic idioms: by and large far; and away

PROVERBS

They are complete sentences whose meanings cannot be inferred from the meaning of their parts.

Examples: Never look a gift horse in the mouth.

The early bird catches the worm.
Birds of a feather flock together.
PREDICATE-ARGUMENT STRUCTURE

It represents concepts and relationships among them.

Some words act like arguments and some words act like predicates:
Nouns as concepts or arguments: red(ball)
Adjs., Advs., Verbs as predicates: red(ball)

Subcategorization (argument) frames specify number, position, and syntactic category of

arguments Examples:
NP give NP2 NP1 NP give NP1 to NP2
give(x,y,z)

PREDICATES

A predicate: a relational expression which combines with an argument. I can refer to a verb which
requires a number of arguments, depending on what a verb subcategorizes.

At least three classes of verbs are distinguished:

- Intransitive verbs : one argument (or 2).
- Transitive verbs : two arguments (or 3).
- Ditransitive verbs: three arguments

Examples:
- Smile: NP1
- Meet: NP1 NP2
- Give: NP1 NP2 NP3
NP1 NP2 PP

ARGUMENTS
An argument refers to any constituent that is semantically required by some predicate to
combine with that predicate.

Examples:
The boy killed the bird. * The boy killed.
John gave Mary a present. * gave Mary a present.

Characteristics
Arguments are semantically differentiated according to their semantic role
SEMANTIC ROLES: FILMORE

1. AGENTIVE: the case of the typically animate perceived instigator of the action
identified by the verb.
2. INSTRUMENTAL: the case of the inanimate force or object involved in the
action or state identified by the verb
3. DATIVE: the case of the animate being affected by the state or action identified
by the verb.
4. FACTITIVE: the case of the object or being resulting from the action or state
identified by the verb, or understood as a apart of the meaning of the verb.
5. LOCATIVE: the case which identifies the location or spatial orientation of the
state or action identified by the verb.
6. OBJECTIVE: the semantically most neutral case of the anything represented by
a noun whose role in the action or state identified by the verb is identified by the
semantic interpretation of the verb itself; conceivably the concept should be
limited to things which are affected by the action or state identified by the verb.
The term is not to be confused with the notion of direct object, nor with the
name of the surface case synonymous with accusative.

SEMANTIC ROLES: LONGACRE

1. EXPERIENCER: animate entity whose registering nervous system is relevant to

the predication.
2. PATIENT: inanimate entity of which a state or location is predicated or which
undergoes change of state or location; animate entity which undergoes change of
(physical) state or location.
3. AGENT: the animate entity which instigates a process or which acts; an
inanimate entity which acts.
4. RANGE: the role assigned to any surface structure nominal that completes or
further specifies the predicate; the product of the activity of a predicate.
5. MEASURE: the role assigned to any surface nominal which completes a
predicate by quantifying it; the price in a transfer.
6. INSTRUMENT: an inanimate entity or body part which an (animate) agent
intentionally uses to accomplish an action or to instigate a process; any entity
(unintentional with animate) which conditions an (emotional) state or which
triggers a change in emotional or physical state.
7. LOCATIVE: the locale of a predication.
8. SOURCE: the locale which a predication assumes as place of origin; the entity
from which physical sensation emanates; the animate entity who is the original
owner in a transfer.
9. GOAL: the locale which is the point of termination for a predication; the entity
towards which a predication is directed without any necessary change of state in
that entity. The animate entity who is the non-transitory or terminal owner.
10. PATH: the locale or locales transversed in motion, etc. predications; the
transitory owner.
SEMANTIC ROLES: ÁLVAREZ BENITO

1. INSTIGATOR: animate being which makes someone to perform the action

(ex. Claire persuaded Jim to kill the horse)
2. AGENT: animate being that performs the action identified by the verb.
(ex. Lucy wrote a very nice poem)
3. FORCE: inanimate element that has an inner force to perform an action by itself.
(ex. The wind destroyed the city)
4. INSTRUMENT: inanimate entity which an animate being (te agent) uses to
perform the action identified by the verb.
(ex. The hammer broke the window)
5. PATIENT/DATIVE: animate being that is affected by the state or action
identified by the verb.
(ex. My grandfather died in 1992)
6. LOCATIVE: the case which identifies the location or spatial orientation of the
state or action identified by the verb.
(ex. I put the book on your table)
7. AFFECTED/OBJECTIVE: inanimate entity affected by the action or state
identified by the verb.
(ex. I saw the house/Peter)
8. CURRENT: entity which qualifies another one and which exists before the
action or state identified by the verb.
(ex. My brother was very tall)
9. RESULTING: entity which exists as a result of the action of the verb.
(ex. My mother made a chocolate cake)
10. EVENTIVE: element, generally unmaterial, which takes place for a short period
of time. It is an event which does not last forever.
(ex. The concert will be next month)
11. MEASURE: entity that completes a predication by quantifying it.
(ex. This car costs a lot of money/30000 euro)
12. GRADIENT: this is a case which is in between Affected and Locative (ex. He
Jumped the fence) This also happens at the syntactic level. It can be either an
object or an adverbial (The wind destroyed the city)
13. EXPERIENCER: animate being which undergoes the action or state identified
by verbs of feelings and emotion.
(ex. My little brother)

SEMANTIC ROLES

ACTOR: the doer of an Action

The wind blew down the tree.
? The wind blew down the tree on purpose.

The earthquake destroyed the whole city.

? The earthquake destroyed the whole city on purpose.
When the ACTOR has an intention to act, she or he is the AGENT.
AGENT: the one who intentionally initiates the action expressed by the predicate.
The dog chased the cat.
The dog chased the cat on purpose.

Problem Δ
John left the room.
John = Agent or Actor
The context is obligatory to determine the intentionality or unintentionality of
John’s action.

SEMANTIC (THEMATIC) ROLES

Semantic Roles: Participants in an event

- Agent: George hit Bill. Bill was hit by George.
- Patient: George hit Bill. Bill was hit by George.

Semantic (Selectional) Restrictions: Constrain the types of arguments verbs take

- George assassinated the senator
- *The spider assassinated the fly

Verb subcategorization: Allows liking arguments in surface structure with their

semantic roles.

WORDNET

Most widely used hierarchically organized lexical database for English (Fellbaum,
1998)

BUILDING OF WORDNET

Different semantic relations in WordNet

➢ Synonymy
➢ Antonymy
➢ Hypernymy & Hyponymy
➢ Meronymy & Holonymy
➢ Entailment & Troponymy
FORMAT OF WORDNET ENTRIES

ALTERNATION-BASED APPROACH

Diathesis alternations are the possible combinations of arguments and adjuncts in

various syntactic expressions.
The different combination may bring changes of meaning.

For example, verbs such as spray and load may express their arguments in two different
ways, displaying the so-called locative alternation:

- Sharon sprayed water on the plants

- Sharon sprayed the plants with water
- The farmer loaded apples into the cart
- The farmer loaded the cart with apples

We have to bear in mind that verbs which are apparently similar and closely related to
spray and load might not allow these options:
*Monica covered a blanket over the baby ≠ Monica covered the baby with a blanket
* Gina filled lemonade into the pitcher ≠ Gina filled the pitcher with lemonade
* Carla poured the pitcher with lemonade ≠ Carla poured lemonade into the pitcher
* The farmer dumped the cart with apples ≠ The farmer dumped apples into the cart
We have to agree there are subtle differences in meaning associated with alternate
expressions of a verb’s arguments.

In the sentence The farmer loaded the cart with apples suggest that the cart is full, but
The farmer loaded apples into the cart need not suggest this. Thus, The farmer loaded
apples into the cart, but not The farmer loaded the cart with apples, could be used to
describe a cart that is half-ful of apples (This is the much discussed Holistic/Partitive
Effect.

We should also know that a verb may participate in one of various transitive
alternations found in English. So, for example, although the verb break shows transitive
(cause-to-break transitive) and intransitive (cause-to-break intransitive) uses – called
causative/inchoative alternation – this is not available for the verb appear.

The verb appear cannot be used transitively to mean ‘cause-to-appear-intransitive’.

- The window broke (inchoative variant)
- The little boy broke the window (causative variant)
- A rabbit appeared out of the magician’s hat ≠ *The magician appeared a rabbit
out of his hat.

CAUSATIVE/INCHOATIVE ALTERNATION

The transitive variant is causative, whereas the intransitive variant is inchoative.

John broke the window /SVO/
The window broke /SV/
Mary opened the door /SVO/
The door opened /SV/

Transitive variant – explicit ergative element which causes the action to take place.
The object of this transitive variant is affected by the action identified by the verb.

Intransitive variant – affected element in subject position and the ergative element
does not appear at all.

So, in this inchoative variant, we see the action from the point of view of the affected
element and not from the point of view of the ergative element.

MIDDLE ALTERNATION
The middle alternation is very similar to the inchoative one, with the difference that it
requires an obligatory adverbial. So, as well as the inchoative alternation, it is
intransitive, but it is not monovalent but bivalent /SVA/.
My little brother broke the crystal vase.
Crystal vases break easily. This sweater washes well. If we delete the adverbial, the
sentence would become ungrammatical: *This sweater washes
There are some verbs, like break, that allow the two alternation, inchoative and middle
but some verb will only allow one of them.

John broke the bottle

The bottle broke
Bottles break easily

CONATIVE ALTERNATION

The conative alternation is also a transitive alternation, but unlike the middle and
inchoative alternations, the subject of the transitive variant (The girl hit the man) and
the intransitive variant (The girl hit at the man) bears the same semantic relation to the
verb.
In the conative construction, the argument corresponding to the object of the transitive
variant is expressed in a prepositional phrase headed by at. The conative construction is
set apart by its meaning. There is no entailment that the action denoted by the verb
was completed. Thus (The girl hit at the man) means something like “the girl tried to hit
the man”.

SUBJECT-INSTRUMENT ALTERNATION

This alternation involves verbs that have agent subjects, but that alternatively may take
as subjects noun phrases that can be expressed in some type of prepositional phrase
when the verb takes its canonical agent subject.

Such subjects have been referred to as Oblique Subjects because certain prepositional
phrases, particularly those expressing non-subcategorized arguments, are sometimes
referred to as oblique phrases. When the verb takes the oblique subject, the agent is no
longer expressed.
Ex. David broke the window with the hammer.
The hammer broke the window (intermediary instrument)

LOCATIVE ALTERNATION

The locative alternation is found with certain verbs that relate to putting substances on
surfaces or things in containers, or to removing substances from surfaces of things from
containers.
Ex. Jack sprayed paint on the wall
Jack sprayed the wall with paint

One of the most studied properties of the locative alternation is the so-called ‘holistic-
partitive effect’. When the location argument is not expressed as the object of a
preposition, it is associated with what has been called a ‘holistic’ or ‘affected’
interpretation; that is, the location is understood to be in some sense completely affected
by the action. The location does not necessarily have to receive such an interpretation
when it is expressed as the object of a preposition.