Syntax-semantics mapping of locative arguments (original) (raw)
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Semantics and Pragmatics of Locative Expressions
Cognitive Science 9, 341-378, 1985
The paper examines locative expressions and shows that an adequate account of their meaning must be based on two essential understandings: First, the simple spatial relation, often given as the meaning of the spatial prepositions, is only an “ideal” from which there are deviations in context: second, a level of “geometric conceptualization” mediates between “the world as it is” and language. Pragmatic “near principles” are formulated to explain some deviations from the ideal and several other apparent irregularities of prepositional use. A set of “use types” of the ideal meaning is proposed to account for conventional aspects of locative meaning. The paper concludes with a discussion of the consequences of this description of locative expressions for artificial intelligence and linguistics.
Goal and Source: Their Syntactic and Semantic Asymmetry
Annual Meeting of the Berkeley Linguistics Society, 2004
Introduction This paper investigates the syntactic and semantic difference between two types of directional PPs-(i) Goal locatives (e.g., into the store) and (ii) Source locatives (e.g., from the store). Their contrastive syntactic behavior is identified in various constructions, and we account for the contrast by assigning them two distinct underlying base positions. Further, we argue that their systematic semantic differences are predicted by their semantic scope in event structure. Jackendoff (1983, 1990) does not take thematic roles like Source and Goal as grammatical primitives, and the notions are defined in his lexical conceptual structure of event. Thus in Jackendoff (1990), Goal and Source are defined as the arguments of Path-functions, [ Path TO ([ Place … ])] and [ Path FROM ([ Place … ])], respectively. Prepositions like to, into and onto typically take a Goal argument, and from, from under, from behind, and off can take a Source argument. The paper is organized as follows: Section 1 illustrates the Goal-Source asymmetry in syntax, specifically in the structures of Preposition Incorporation, Prepositional/Pseudo Passives, PP-dislocation and locative alternations. Section 2 shows the semantic contrast between Goal and Source PPs with respect to adverbial modification and aspectual composition. Section 3 proposes two distinct underlying base positions of Goal and Source locatives, and accounts for the syntactic and semantic contrast in terms of more fine-grained event structure. Further, we propose a set of mapping rules which link the locative PPs in event structure with their syntactic positions. 1
A Typology of Locatives and Event Composition in English
Second Language Research, 2000
This paper, based on Nam's (1995) logic of space, proposes a compositional semantics of event structures in terms of eventuality type of predicates and the semantics of locatives. The paper proposes the following typology of English locatives: (i) Stative locatives, (ii) Symmetric locatives, (iii) Telic locatives, and (iv) Atelic locatives. Extending the version of Pustejovskys (1995) Event Structure, the paper further identifies five classes of eventualities: (i) e1[state], (ii) e1[process], (iii) e1*[process]+e2[state], (iv) e1[process]+e2*[state], and (v) e1*[process]+e2*[state]. It is claimed that the following patterns of telicity shifting arise in semantic composition of predicates and locatives: (i) e1[process] → e1[process]+e2*[state], e.g., run into the room, and (ii) e1*[process]+e2[state] → e1*[process]+e2*[state], e.g., load the hay on the truck. Defining paths as sequences of regions and orientations as directed rays, the paper accounts for the contrast between teli...
Caused-Motion and Caused-Position: Syntactic Patterns and Semantic Networks
Studies in Language, 2021
According to Goldberg (1995), placement verbs (such as put) are instantiated in the Caused-Motion Construction. Rohde (2001), however, argued that placement verbs in fact occur in a different construction, which she names the Caused-Position Construction, whose semantic value is not 'cause to move' but rather 'cause to be positioned'. The present paper redefines and justifies the postulation of Caused-Position Construction. The Caused-position Construction is compatible with not only placement verbs but also a variety of other verbs, such as verbs of creation (write or build) or certain stative verbs (want or need), many of which also occur in the Locative Inversion construction. Further, a similar distinction between Caused-Motion and Caused-Position can be attested in Mandarin as well, which suggests that the distinction between two patterns of spatial cau-sation may not be idiosyncratically confined to the English language but motivated by the general patterns of human cognition.
Aspectual and quantificational properties of locative verbs
To appear in Acta Linguistica Hungarica (2014)
In this paper we claim that location and locatum verbs are grammatically different, contrary to Mateu's (2001Mateu's ( , 2008 and Harley's (2005) analyses: while location verbs denote a preposition of locative semantics, locatum verbs involve a non-locative preposition. The analysis is based on the fact that location and locatum verbs respond differently to aspectual and quantification tests: while the former seem to be plain change-of-state verbs, the latter behave rather like degree achievements.
Directionalized locatives: A label theoretic account.
The past two decades have seen the formation of a body of literature on the syntax and semantics of spatial expressions. Much of the syntactic work has been within the cartographic approach, which seeks to identify the functional sequence of a given domain (e.g., the papers contained in Cinque and Rizzi, 2010). In this section, I will first outline an analysis of English spatial P under the cartographic approach (Svenonius, 2010). I will then discuss some problems with how this approach treats directionalized locatives. PlaceP Place between KP the pylons b. Directionalized PP (following Svenonius, 2010) PathP Path ∅ PlaceP Place between KP the pylons
From Motion Events To(wards) a Semantics of Relocation
The paper aims at further refining the theoretical tools and metalanguage available for comparing the lexicalisation of motion, and, in particular, the enterprise of moving (or being moved) from one place (Loc 1) to another (Loc 2), across languages, with special reference to the well-established distinction between Manner (and/or satellite-framed) and Path (and/or verb-framed) languages. Several authors have pointed out the need for a more consistent theoretical basis for (a) distinguishing so-called "motion events", "directed motion", etc. from motion in a wider sense, and (b) further specifying and differentiating the intuitively attractive, but vaguely defined parameters of Manner and Path. The presented approach addresses these issues in combination by suggesting a cross-linguistic situation and verb classification incorporating certain basic insights on pre-linguistic visual cognition involving delay-and-compare processing.
Linguistics, 2007
This special issue is devoted to a relatively neglected topic in linguistics, namely the verbal component of locative statements. English tends, of course, to use a simple copula in utterances like ''The cup is on the table'', but many languages, perhaps as many as half of the world's languages, have a set of alternate verbs, or alternate verbal a‰xes, which contrast in this slot. 1 Often these are classificatory verbs of 'sitting', 'standing' and 'lying'. For this reason, perhaps, Aristotle listed position among his basic (''noncomposite'') categories: Expressions which are in no way composite signify substance, quantity, quality, relation, place, time, position, state, action, or a¤ection. To sketch my meaning roughly, examples of substance are 'man' or 'the horse', of quantity, such terms as 'two cubits long' or 'three cubits long', of quality, such attributes as 'white', 'grammatical'. 'Double', 'half ', 'greater', fall under the category of relation; 'in the market place', 'in the Lyceum', under that of place; 'yesterday', 'last year', under that of time.
AUC PHILOLOGICA
The paper analyses English sentences with thematic locative subjects. These subjects were detected as translation counterparts of Czech sentence-initial locative adverbials realized by prepositional phrases with the prepositions do (into), na (on), v/ve (in), z/ze (from) complemented by a noun. In the corresponding English structure, the initial scene-setting adverbial is reflected in the thematic subject, which results in the locative semantics of the subject. The sentences are analysed from syntactic, semantic and FSP aspects. From the syntactic point of view, we found five syntactic patterns of the English sentences with a locative subject (SV, SVA, SVO, SV pass A and SVCs) that correspond to Czech sentences with initial locative adverbials. On the FSP level the paper studies the potential of the sentences to implement the Presentation or Quality Scale. Since it is the "semantic content of the verb that actuates the presentation semantics of the sentence" (Dušková, 2015a: 260), major attention is paid to the syntactic-semantic structure of the verb. The analysis of the semantics of the English sentences results in the identification of two semantic classes of verbs which co-occur with the English locative subject.