In this rich reference work, Beth Levin classifies over 3,000 English verbs according to shared meaning and behavior. Levin starts with the hypothesis that a verb's meaning influences its syntactic behavior and develops it into a powerful tool for studying the English verb lexicon. She shows how identifying verbs with similar syntactic behavior provides an effective means of distinguishing semantically coherent verb classes, and isolates these classes by examining verb behavior with respect to a wide range of syntactic alternations that reflect verb meaning. The first part of the book sets out alternate ways in which verbs can express their arguments. The second presents classes of verbs that share a kernel of meaning and explores in detail the behavior of each class, drawing on the alternations in the first part. Levin's discussion of each class and alternation includes lists of relevant verbs, illustrative examples, comments on noteworthy properties, and bibliographic references. The result is an original, systematic picture of the organization of the verb inventory. Easy to use, English Verb Classes and Alternations sets the stage for further explorations of the interface between lexical semantics and syntax. It will prove indispensable for theoretical and computational linguists, psycholinguists, cognitive scientists, lexicographers, and teachers of English as a second language.

Seminar paper from the year 2002 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, Free University of Berlin (Anglistics), course: Seminar Verb classes and alternations, language: English, abstract: [...] “This work is guided by the assumption that the behaviour of verb, particularly with respect to the expression and interpretation of its arguments, is to a large extent determined by its meaning.” (Levin 1993) [Levin tries to develop a system which enables the speaker to determine the behaviour of a verb by its meaning] Levin points out that a native speaker is able to make subtle judgements about the syntactic behaviour of a verb. She hypothesises that it is the meaning of the verb which enables the speaker to make such judgements about a verb’s syntactic behaviour. //In particular, the ability of a verb to exist in certain syntactic frames or constructions (see examples below) is sensitive to certain components of meaning. The book aims to establish the relevant components of meaning, and thereby classify the English verbs into classes of shared behaviour and meaning. Levin (1993:.. following ... 1987) uses the verb “gally” - a nearly obsolete whaling term little-known to native speakers - to illustrate this relationship between a verb’s meaning and its syntactic behaviour. [...]

While verb classes are a mainstay of linguistic research, the field lacks consensus on precisely what constitutes a verb class. This book presents a novel approach to verb classes, employing a bottom-up, corpus-based methodology and combining key insights from Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar, and Valency Grammar. On this approach, verb classes are formulated at varying granularity levels to adequately capture both the shared semantic and syntactic properties unifying verbs of a class and the idiosyncratic properties unique to individual verbs. In-depth analyses based on this approach shed light on the interrelations between verbs, frame-semantics, and constructions, and on the semantic richness and network organization of grammatical constructions. This approach is extended to a comparison of Change and Theft verbs, revealing unexpected lexical and syntactic differences across semantically distinct classes. Finally, a range of contrastive (German–English) analyses demonstrate how verb classes can inform the cross-linguistic comparison of verbs and constructions.

Earlier empirical studies on valency have looked at the phenomenon either in individual languages or a small range of languages, or have concerned themselves with only small subparts of valency (e.g. transitivity, ditransitive constructions), leaving a lacuna that the present volume aims to fill by considering a wide range of valency phenomena across 30 languages from different parts of the world. The individual-language studies, each written by a specialist or group of specialists on that language and covering both valency patterns and valency alternations, are based on a questionnaire (reproduced in the volume) and an on-line freely accessible database, thus guaranteeing comparability of cross-linguistic results. In addition, introductory chapters provide the background to the project and discuss its main characteristics and selected results, while a series of featured articles by leading scholars who helped shape the field provide an outside perspective on the volume’s approach. The volume is essential reading for anyone interested in valency and argument structure, irrespective of theoretical persuasion, and will serve as a model for future descriptive studies of valency in individual languages.

This volume of proceedings contains papers, posters, and summaries of symposia presented at the leading conference that brings cognitive scientists together to discuss issues of theoretical and applied concern. For researchers and educators in the field.

It is well-known that derivational affixes can be highly polysemous, producing a range of different, often related, meanings. For example, English deverbal nouns with the suffix -er can denote instruments (opener), agents (writer), locations (diner), or patients (loaner). It is commonly assumed that this polysemy arises through a compositional process in which the affix interacts with the semantics of the base. Yet, despite intensive research in recent years, a workable model for this interaction is still under debate. In order to study and model the semantic contributions of the base and of the affix, a framework is needed in which meanings can be composed and decomposed. In this book, I formalize the semantic input and output of derivation by means of frames, that is, recursive attribute-value structures that serve to model mental representations of concepts. In my approach, the input frame offers an array of semantic elements from which an affix may select to construct the derivative's meaning. The relationship between base and derivative is made explicit by integrating their respective frame-semantic representations into lexical rules and inheritance hierarchies. I apply this approach to a qualitative corpus study of the productive relationship between the English nominalizing suffix -ment and a semantically delimited set of verbal bases. My data set consists of 40 neologisms with base verbs from two semantic classes, namely change-of-state verbs and verbs of psychological state. I analyze 369 attestations which were elicited from various corpora with a purposeful sampling approach, and which were hand-coded using common semantic categories such as event, state, patient and stimulus. My results show that -ment can target a systematically restricted set of elements in the frame of a given base verb. It thereby produces a range of possible readings in each derivative, which becomes ultimately interpretable only within a specific context. The derivational process is governed by an interaction of the semantic elements provided by the base on the one hand, with properties of the affix (e.g. -ment's aversion to [+animate] readings) on the other. For instance, a shift from the verb annoy to a result-state reading in annoyment is possible because the input frame of verbs of psychological state offers a RESULT-STATE attribute, which, as is fixed in the inheritance hierarchy, is compatible with -ment. Meanwhile, a shift from annoy to an experiencer reading in annoyment fails because the value range of the attribute EXPERIENER is fixed to [+animate] entities, so that -ment's animacy constraint blocks the inheritance mechanism. Furthermore, a quantitative exploration of my data set reveals a likely blocking effect for some -ment readings. Thus, while I have found most expected combinations of nominalization and reading attested, there are pronounced gaps for readings like instrument or stimulus. Such readings are likely to be produced by standardly subject-denoting suffixes such as -er or -ant, which may reduce the probability for -ment derivation. The quantitative analysis furthermore shows that, within the subset of attested combinations, ambiguity is widespread, with 43% of all combinations of nominalization and reading being only attested ambiguously. This book shows how a derivational process acts on the semantics of a given verbal base by reporting on an in-depth qualitative study of the semantic contributions of both the base and the affix. Furthermore, it demonstrates that an explicit semantic decomposition of the base is essential for the analysis of the resulting derivative's semantics.

This lively lecture series by a leading expert introduces the theory, practice and application of a versatile, rigorous and well-developed approach to cross-linguistic semantics: the NSM approach originated by Anna Wierzbicka. Topics include: history and philosophy of the study of meaning, semantic primes and molecules, emotions, evaluation, verbs and event structure, cultural key words and scripts. Case studies come from English, Chinese, Danish, and other languages. Applications in language teaching and intercultural education are also covered, along with comparisons between NSM and other leading approaches to linguistic semantics. The book will appeal to students and scholars of linguistics at all levels, communication and translation scholars, and anyone interested in a systematic and non Anglocentric approach to meaning, culture and cognition.

The Oxford Handbook of Cognitive Science emphasizes the research and theory most central to modern cognitive science: computational theories of complex human cognition. Additional facets of cognitive science are discussed in the handbook's introductory chapter.

Gradation is usually considered to be a property of adjectives. Examples like 'The boy loves his mother very much' and 'The boy has grown a lot' reveal that gradation is not limited to adjectives but verbs are gradable too. Verb gradation has received considerably less attention in the literature than gradation of adjectives. The aim of the current volume is to explore the notion of verb gradation in more detail. The book presents a semantic as well as a syntactic analysis of verb gradation and combines three case studies with a general perspective on the phenomenon. Issues addressed in the volume cover, among others, the notion of scalarity in the verbal domain, the interaction of verb gradation with grammatical as well as lexical aspect and verb gradation as a subcompositional phenomenon. These topics are investigated from a cross-linguistic perspective. The languages of investigation include, among others, German, Russian and French.

This volume collects essays that approach notions of creating, maintaining, and crossing boundaries in the history of the English language. The concept of boundaries is variously defined within linguistics depending on the theoretical framework, from formal and theoretical perspectives to specific fields and more empirical, physical, and perceptual angles. The contributions to this volume do not take one particular theoretical or methodological approach but, instead, explore how examining various types of boundaries—linguistic, conceptual, analytical, generic, physical—helps us illuminate and account for historical use, variation, and change in English. In their exploration of various topics in the history of English, contributions ask a range of questions: what does it mean to set up boundaries between time periods? When do language varieties have distinct boundaries and when do they overlap? Where do language users draw up clausal, constructional, semantic, phonetic/phonological boundaries? Thus, the chapters explore not only how boundaries illustrate synchronic and diachronic features in the history of the English language but also what we can discover by questioning perceived or actual boundaries.