The interrelation of semantic structure and syntactic variation in Old English verb classes: catalogue of syntactico-semantic constructions

The aim of this paper is to motivate the syntactic and morphological behaviour of the Old English verbs which share the core meaning of 'to remember', 'to emit a smell', 'to produce a sound' and 'to speak' from their semantic structure. Firstly, as a result of the analysis of these verb subclasses, I will propose a subclass-based lexical template for each lexical subclass. Within the Lexical Grammar Model, lexical templates are conceived as lexical representations where meaning description is encapsulated and interacts with the syntactic behaviour of lexical units. In order to construct a lexical template, Role and Reference Grammar logical structures will be complemented by a semantic decomposition which will define different lexical (sub-)classes. Secondly, the Lexical Template Modelling Process will stipulate the linking between the syntactic and semantic representation of these verbs. This process will establish the lexical rules that account for the mapping between the different semantic constructions and the syntactic structures and alternations in which these verbs participate and the lexical templates codified by these verb subclasses. As a result, a catalogue of the syntactico-semantic constructions exhibited by these Old English verbal predicates will be provided.

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Old English verbs of prohibition. Grammatical behaviour and class membership

SELIM. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature. ◽

10.17811/selim.24.2019.1-28 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 24 (1) ◽

pp. 1

Author(s):

Ana Elvira Ojanguren López

Keyword(s):

Theoretical Model ◽

Old English ◽

Class Membership ◽

Verb Classes ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

English Verb

The aim of this article is to determine if the Old English verbs bewerian, forbēodan, foresacan, forwiernan, stīeran and tōcweþān constitute a unified class of prohibition. The theoretical model is provided by the framework of verb classes and alternations, as well as by Role and Reference Grammar. Class membership requires not only similar meaning components but also shared grammatical behaviour. While bewerian, forbēodan and forwyrnan are found in three syntactic configurations, and in the Nominalisation and Undergoer alternations, foresacan, stīeran and tōcweþān occur in one syntactic configuration only and do not take part in these alternations. The main conclusion of this article is that these verbs do not show a similar grammatical behaviour and, therefore, cannot be said to represent a consistent verbal class.Keywords: Old English; verb classes; alternations; Role and Reference Grammar

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Old English verbs of increasing: the semantics and syntax of change in size

Revista de Lingüística y Lenguas Aplicadas ◽

10.4995/rlyla.2021.14700 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 16 (1) ◽

pp. 123

Author(s):

Miguel Lacalle Palacios

Keyword(s):

Old English ◽

Verb Classes ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

Theoretical Side

This article aims at defining a class of Old English verbs of increasing based on both their common semantic components and grammatical behavior. On the theoretical side, the framework of verb classes and alternations is combined with Role and Reference Grammar. The data selected for this study have been extracted from both textual and lexicographical sources. After the analysis of the linking between syntax and semantics in this set of verbs, the conclusion is reached that āðindan, āweaxan, ēacan, (ge)ēacnian and (ge)weaxan are the best candidates for membership of the verbal class of increasing, considering the constructions and alternations that they present.

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Old English verbs of learning: Information and knowledge acquisition

SELIM. Journal of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature. ◽

10.17811/selim.26.2021.25-56 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 25-56

Author(s):

Miguel Lacalle Palacios

Keyword(s):

Knowledge Acquisition ◽

Old English ◽

Theoretical Basis ◽

Verb Classes ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Reference Grammar

The aim of this article is to provide an inventory of Old English verbs belonging to the class of learning on the grounds of their common semantic components and shared grammatical behavior. The framework of verb classes and alternations and Role and Reference Grammar provide the theoretical basis for this study. Both textual and lexicographical sources have been used to select the data for the analysis of the linking between semantics and syntax with these verbs. The main conclusion of the article is that, considering the constructions and alternations in which they are found in Old English, the verbs (ge)frignan, (ge)leornian, ofācsian, and onfindan are the best candidates for membership of the class of verbs of learning.

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Designing the Lexical Rules for the Parsing of ASD-STE100 Function Words in ARTEMIS from a Role and Reference Grammar Perspective

Journal of English Studies ◽

10.18172/jes.3935 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 17 ◽

pp. 149

Author(s):

María del Carmen Fumero-Pérez ◽

Ana Díaz-Galán

Keyword(s):

Natural Language ◽

Language Processing ◽

Semantic Representation ◽

Technical Documentation ◽

Simple Sentence ◽

Function Words ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

Lexical Rules ◽

Controlled Language

ARTEMIS (Automatically Representing Text Meaning via an Interlingua-based System), is a natural language processing device, whose ultimate aim is to be able to understand natural language fragments and arrive at their syntactic and semantic representation. Linguistically, this parser is founded on two solid linguistic theories: the Lexical Constructional Model and Role and Reference Grammar. Although the rich semantic representations and the multilingual character of Role and Reference Grammar make it suitable for natural language understanding tasks, some changes to the model have proved necessary in order to adapt it to the functioning of the ARTEMIS parser. This paper will deal with one of the major modifications that Role and Reference Grammar had to undergo in this process of adaptation, namely, the substitution of the operator projection for feature-based structures, and how this will influence the description of function words in ARTEMIS, since they are strongly responsible for the encoding of the grammatical information which in Role and Reference Grammar is included in the operators. Currently, ARTEMIS is being implemented for the controlled natural language ASD-STE100, the Aerospace and Defence Industries Association of Europe Simplified Technical English, which is an international specification for the preparation of technical documentation in a controlled language. This controlled language is used in the belief that its simplified nature makes it a good corpus to carry out a preliminary testing of the adequacy of the parser. In this line, the aim of this work is to create a catalogue of function words in ARTEMIS for ASD-STE100, and to design the lexical rules necessary to parse the simple sentence and the referential phrase in this controlled language.

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Automatically Representing TExt Meaning via an Interlingua-based System (ARTEMIS). A further step towards the computational representation of RRG

Journal of Computer-Assisted Linguistic Research ◽

10.4995/jclr.2017.7788 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 1 (1) ◽

pp. 61 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Ricardo Mairal-Usón ◽

Francisco Cortés-Rodríguez

Keyword(s):

Language Processing ◽

Semantic Representation ◽

Analysis Data ◽

Logical Structure ◽

Automatic Generation ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

Level 1 ◽

Computational Resources ◽

Computational Representation

Within the framework of FUNK Lab – a virtual laboratory for natural language processing inspired on a functionally-oriented linguistic theory like Role and Reference Grammar-, a number of computational resources have been built dealing with different aspects of language and with an application in different scientific domains, i.e. terminology, lexicography, sentiment analysis, document classification, text analysis, data mining etc. One of these resources is ARTEMIS (Automatically Representing TExt Meaning via an Interlingua-Based System), which departs from the pioneering work of Periñán-Pascual (2013) and Periñán-Pascual & Arcas (2014). This computational tool is a proof of concept prototype which allows the automatic generation of a conceptual logical structure (CLS) (cf. Mairal-Usón, Periñán-Pascual and Pérez 2012; Van Valin and Mairal-Usón 2014), that is, a fully specified semantic representation of an input text on the basis of a reduced sample of sentences. The primary aim of this paper is to develop the syntactic rules that form part of the computational grammar for the representation of simple clauses in English. More specifically, this work focuses on the format of those syntactic rules that account for the upper levels of the RRG Layered Structure of the Clause (LSC), that is, the core (and the level-1 construction associated with it), the clause and the sentence (Van Valin 2005). In essence, this analysis, together with that in Cortés-Rodríguez and Mairal-Usón (2016), offers an almost complete description of the computational grammar behind the LSC for simple clauses.

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Aspectual features in Role and Reference Grammar

Revista Española de Lingüística Aplicada/Spanish Journal of Applied Linguistics ◽

10.1075/resla.27.1.02cor ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 27 (1) ◽

pp. 23-53 ◽

Cited By ~ 1

Author(s):

Francisco J. Cortés Rodriguez

Keyword(s):

Semantic Representation ◽

Functional Model ◽

Morphological Aspect ◽

Functional Projection ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

The Core ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

Event Structures

The kernel of the semantic representation of a predicate in Role and Reference Grammar (RRG) is based on its characterization in terms of an Aktionsart typology based on Vendler’s (1957) classes plus some additional elements from Smith (1997) and Dowty (1979). This means that event structures are mainly considered a lexical phenomenon pertaining to predicates, and only occasionally higher predicational structures are considered in event construction. Even though this approach is adequate to a great extent, there are still some problems in the approach taken in RRG. The most significant drawback is that non-lexical aspects appear intermingled with predicate-only features, which leads to misinterpretations and misclassifications of predicates. Consequently, it sees more sensible to bring a functional model of grammar like RRG to a compromise position and, thus, consider in what ways different units identified as belonging to the different layers in RRG’s syntactic projections ‘conspire’ in the final aspectual characterization of events. In this line, this paper will propose a classification of aspectual features in terms of the levels found in the functional projection of the clause as devised in RRG, namely the Predicate Level (the domain of Aktionsart typology), the Nucleus (where morphological aspect has scope) and the Core (the locus for what will be described as ‘aspectuality’ features).

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The mosaic acquisition of grammatical relations

Journal of Child Language ◽

10.1017/s0305000900011235 ◽

1991 ◽

Vol 18 (3) ◽

pp. 517-551 ◽

Cited By ~ 18

Author(s):

Matthew Rispoli

Keyword(s):

Word Order ◽

Theoretical Framework ◽

Semantic Structure ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Verb Agreement ◽

Grammatical Relations ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

Discrete Structures ◽

Focus Marking ◽

Logical Semantic

ABSTRACTThe view that grammatical relations have substantial essence, designated as ‘subject’ or ‘object’ has difficulty in accounting for the variety of naturally acquirable grammatical relations. The acquisition of grammatical relations is examined from a theoretical framework, ROLE AND REFERENCE GRAMMAR, in which grammatical relations are decomposed into two separate types of structure: logical (semantic) structure and information (pragmatic) structure. The acquisition of grammatical relations from four languages is compared: (1) the definite accusative suffix and pragmatically motivated word order of Turkish; (2) Kaluli verb agreement, case and focus marking postpositions, and pragmatically motivated word order; (3) Hungarian definite and indefinite verb conjunction; and (4) Italian participial agreement and anaphoric, accusative case pronouns. Two conditions on structures are found to cause difficulty: the neutralization of a semantic or pragmatic distinction by interfering structures (e.g. Kaluli and Italian), and global case marking which forces the child to discover relevant semantic characteristics of both the actor and the undergoer (e.g. Hungarian and Kaluli). Structures that encode semantic or pragmatic distinctions independently are more easily acquired (e.g. Turkish). Piecing together discrete structures in a mosaic fashion, the child can acquire the great variety of grammatical relations that exist in human languages.

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A Frame-Based Analysis of Verbal Particles in Hungarian

Language, Cognition, and Mind - Concepts, Frames and Cascades in Semantics, Cognition and Ontology ◽

10.1007/978-3-030-50200-3_11 ◽

2021 ◽

pp. 219-237

Author(s):

Kata Balogh ◽

Rainer Osswald

Keyword(s):

Formal Model ◽

Semantic Representation ◽

Formal Representation ◽

Frame Semantics ◽

Change Analysis ◽

Semantic Composition ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

Boundary Setting

AbstractThe verbal particle in Hungarian raises a number of intriguing issues for any theory of the syntax-semantics interface. In this article, we aim at a formal account of the semantic contribution of various verbal particles in Hungarian and we show how the semantic representation of the clause can be compositionally derived. We will concentrate on the four frequent particles meg-, le-, el- and fel-. Our approach makes use of a formalized version of Role and Reference Grammar and the framework of decompositional frame semantics. In particular, we give a formal representation of the boundary-setting function of the verbal particle in terms of decompositional frames which builds on a scalar change analysis. We furthermore analyze the interaction of the particle with resultative adjectives and provide a formal model of how their syntactic representations drive their frame-semantic composition.

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Revisiting Aktionsart types for lexical classes

Review of Cognitive Linguistics ◽

10.1075/rcl.14.2.09cor ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 14 (2) ◽

pp. 498-521

Author(s):

Francisco J. Cortés-Rodriguez

Keyword(s):

Semantic Representation ◽

Event Structure ◽

Semantic Representations ◽

Basic Premise ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

Critical Revision ◽

Meaning Representation ◽

Good Number

A good number of lexical and grammatical models make use of systems of meaning representation which are based on a theory of event structure. Theories of event structure quite often take aspectual features as the backbone for the semantic representation of symbolic units, i.e predicates and constructions. One of the most comprehensive and detailed proposals for the aspectual characterization of both lexical units and argumental constructions can be found in the Lexical Constructional Model, which in turn is based on the system for semantic representations from Role and Reference Grammar. However, such a system presents some drawbacks, which stem mainly from not establishing a neat distinction between what is properly lexical and what is contributed by higher constructional units in the denotation of specific events. Taking such a distinction as a basic premise for a sound characterization of events, in this paper a reassessment of the typology of aspectual classes from these models is made; this critical revision is followed by a hierarchical reorganization of such aspectual classes.

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Typology and diachrony of converbs in Indo-Aryan

Diachronica ◽

10.1075/dia.19067.str ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Krzysztof Stroński ◽

Leonid Kulikov

Keyword(s):

Recent Discussion ◽

Verbal System ◽

Holistic View ◽

Differential Object Marking ◽

Role And Reference Grammar ◽

Reference Grammar ◽

Depth Study ◽

History Of ◽

Object Marking ◽

The One

Abstract Non-finite forms constitute an important component of the verbal system of Indo-Aryan (IA) languages. On the one hand, some of them, such as e.g., converbs, have already received proper attention in historical linguistics and typological literature, with regard to Old Indo-Aryan (OIA), Middle Indo-Aryan (MIA) and New Indo-Aryan (NIA) (cf. Tikkanen 1987; Peterson 1998; Subbarao 2012 among others). Other forms, such as participles, have usually been analysed in the wider context of reorganisation of a finite verbal system which led to alignment change (for recent discussion see Dahl and Stroński 2016). On the other hand, adverbial participles or infinitives have so far been under-studied (cf. Sigorski 2005), particularly within early NIA. This period in the history of IA languages witnessed several important morphosyntactic developments and still requires in-depth study, particularly due to the lack of well-edited corpora. The aim of the present paper is to partly fill this gap by highlighting major trends in the development of constructions based on various non-finite forms in early NIA. We focus on main argument marking in converbal chain constructions and its interplay with the animacy hierarchy. We demonstrate a relative stability of differential case marking (DCM), focusing mainly on conditions on differential subject marking (DSM) and differential object marking (DOM). In addition, we compare converbal chain constructions with participial absolute constructions (AC). Finally, in order to give a holistic view of converbal constructions, we verify the type of linking instantiated by them, focusing on three scopal parameters in converbal constructions (Tense, Illocutionary Force and Negation) and using the apparatus of Role and Reference Grammar and Multivariate Analysis.

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