Not all diatheses are created equal: Evidence from semantic drifts

This paper examines the distribution of Modern Hebrew semantic drifts across four diatheses (voices): transitives, unaccusatives (anticausatives), adjectival (stative) passives, and verbal (eventive) passives. A quantitative survey of dictionaries reveals a discrepancy between these diatheses: Only transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives can give rise to unique semantic drifts, unshared with their related root counterparts, while verbal passives cannot. A corpus-based study shows that frequency is unable to account for this finding; nor can approaches demarcating a syntactic domain for special meanings. I argue that semantic drifts are stored as subentries of the entries from which they evolved, as long as the drift’s frequency remains comparably small. Once its frequency surpasses that of the original entry, the drift is stored as an independent lexical entry. In light of that, I suggest that predicates giving rise to unique semantic drifts have to constitute lexical entries. It thus follows that transitives, unaccusatives, and adjectival passives are formed and listed in the lexicon, while verbal passives are not. Consequently, the lexicon is argued to function as an active (operational) component of the grammar, contra syntacticocentric approaches.

Coreference and antecedent representation across languages

Previous studies have shown that speakers of languages such as German, Spanish, and French reactivate the syntactic gender of the antecedent of a pronoun to license gender agreement. As syntactic gender is assumed to be stored in the lexicon, this has motivated the claim that pronouns in these languages reactivate the lexical entry of their antecedent noun. In contrast, in languages without syntactic gender such as English, lexical retrieval might be unnecessary. We used eye-tracking while reading to examine whether antecedent retrieval involves rapid semantic and phonological reactivation. We compared German and English. In German, we found early sensitivity to the semantic but not to the phonological features of the pronoun’s antecedent. In English, readers did not immediately show either semantic or phonological effects specific to coreference. We propose that early semantic facilitation arises due to syntactic gender reactivation, and that antecedent retrieval varies cross-linguistically depending on the type of information relevant to the grammar of each language.

The particle “just” in lexicographic terms and materials for complementing its lexical entry

This article is devoted explores the lexicographic description of functional words. The object of this research is the lexicographic interpretation of functional words. The subject is the interpretations of the particle “just” in various types of dictionaries, namely explanatory and etymological dictionaries of the Russian language, as well as dictionaries developed foreign scholars. The goal is set to systematize the existing information on the particle “just” in the dictionaries, as well as present the material for complementing its lexical entry based on the analysis of factual material in order to create a comprehensive portrait of this unit. For achieving the set goal, the article employs descriptive, comparative, and analytical methods. Comparison of the dictionary data allows determining the similarities and differences in interpretation of the word “just”, establish the invariant meaning of this particle, outline the discrepancies in classification of the types of its use. Leaning on the analysis of factual material of the particle “just” in relation to its syntagmatic and paradigmatic characteristics, the author offers a new interpretation of the meanings of this particle and division of modifications of its meanings. The novelty of this work consists in the proposed material for complementing the lexical entry of the particle “just”.

Rutas de acceso al léxico en un entorno lexicográfico

This paper examines a set of lexicographic projects with innovative routes of access to lexical knowledge, and which constitute a first step towards a more intelligent dictionary, These projects include: (1) collocation dictionaries that specify the relations between a base word and its collocate; (2) dictionaries that make explicit the semantic and lexical restrictions between a predicate and its arguments; (3) lexical resources that describe the linguistic properties of a lexical entry within the context of its frame or frames of activation; (4) dictionaries that provide a conceptual organization of the definiens, instead of the definiendum. Without a doubt, the Digital Era (artificial intelligence, data and text mining, and machine learning) has opened up a vast range of possibilities, which will lead to intelligent lexicographic resources that are more intelligent and interconnected. This chapter concludes with some ideas and proposals about the characteristics of a dictionary 5.0 of the future.

REPRESENTATION AND PROCESSING OF OVERTLY IDENTICAL COMPLEX FORMS IN L1 AND L2

In two visual priming experiments, we investigated the relation of form-identical word forms with different grammatical functions in L1 and L2 German. Four different grammatical types (inflected verbs, infinitives, deverbal conversion forms, and countable nouns) were used as primes and their influence on the processing of form-identical inflected verbs as targets was compared. Results revealed full priming of inflected verbs, but only partial priming for conversion forms and infinitives. No priming was observed for semantically related countable nouns suggesting that they have a separate lexical entry. The findings bring first psycholinguistic evidence for typological claims that deverbal conversion nouns and infinitives fall into the category of nonfinites. They also support accounts assuming representations with a basic lexical entry and word-category specific subentries. The same priming pattern was observed in L1 and L2 suggesting that representation and processing of the studied complex forms is not fundamentally different in the two populations.

Compositional mechanisms and selectional constraints in syntax and word formation

This study compares compositional processes involved in syntax on the one hand and word formation on the other hand within the Generative Lexicon framework. It first shows how semantic types incorporated in a structured lexical entry are acted on by different compositional mechanisms in predicates headed by verbs and in modification constructions, and then analyzes non-evaluative suffixation in Spanish in order to determine how the head suffix interacts with the meaning of the base word. It is concluded that different parts of the lexical entry of the selected component (syntactic argument or morphological base) can be accessed in both phrase construction and word formation, but the mechanisms underlying complex syntactic and morphological structures differ in significant ways.

Three ways of unifying participles and nominalizations

In their chapter ‘Three ways of unifying participles and nominalizations: The case of Udmurt’ Dékány and Georgieva discuss the fact that the same morpheme appears in both DNs and participial relative clauses with relative systematicity in different language families. This makes it unlikely that we are dealing with unconnected cases of accidental homophony in the lexicon. Instead, a principled syntactic account is called for. The authors aim to lay out the hypothesis space for an explanatory account of the cross-linguistic participle-nominalizer polysemy, and to discuss which of the hypotheses is best suited to capture the Udmurt facts in particular. They present three different ways in which the polysemy can be given a unified syntactic account, such that the same lexical entry underlies the shared suffix of relatives and DNs. They then proceed to the empirical focus of the chapter, detailing the morpho-syntactic properties of Udmurt relatives and DNs with -m. They argue against treating -m as a nominalizing head and develop an account of -m as a head in the extended verbal projection. <173>

The issues of old and new lexicography. Applied study: (S A F) material as a case study: إشكالاتُ الصِّناعة ا­لمعجميَّة قديمًا وحديثًا- مادَّةُ (ص ف ح) أنموذجًا- دراسةٌ تطبيقيَّةٌ

A variety of approaches were adopted by authors of Arabic dictionaries in which they paid attention to defining, labelling and ordering the lexical units. However, the confusion is evident in much of what they presented. This study aims at clarifying the aspects of confusion in the approach used in lexical authoring, and the standard adopted in examining the lexical units through studying (S A F) material in three dictionaries, namely: al- Qamus al- Muheet for al- Fayruzabadi (817 AH), Mujam Lesan al- Arab for Ibn Manzur (1311 AH) and al- Mujam al- Waseet, published in (1860 CE) by the Arabic Language Academy in Cairo. To this end, the paper adopted the descriptive and analytical method by tracking the material chosen in the previous dictionaries to show the standard adopted by authors of the dictionary in defining, ordering and labelling the lexical units, and to indicate the effectiveness of what they have provided in the field of lexicography. The study focuses on four main sections during the process of examination: the lexical definition, the internal arrangement under the lexical entry, the methodology of abbreviation appearance and the supporting definition elements; pattern, example and photo.

Prepositions with CP and their implications for extended projections

In some limited cases, English allows a particular preposition to combine with a certain kind of subordinate clause, as exemplified by in that in “I take the proposal seriously, in that I loathe it”. In contrast, Norwegian systematically allows prepositions to combine with subordinate clauses (as in Det resulterte i at vi vant, literally “It resulted in that we won”). I argue that the English case should be handled as the subcategorization for a certain complement class by a particular lexical entry, while the Norwegian case indicates that the extended projection of clauses can continue up to the preposition. This highlights an important difference between lexical selection and extended projection, revealing a hitherto underappreciated source of parametric variation, and sheds light on several properties of extended projections as well as of prepositions. Specifically, the extended projections of N and V may “converge” at P, challenging the notion of extended projection as being confined to a single lexical category.

Thinking with Balibar

This volume, the first sustained critical work on the writing of the French political philosopher Etienne Balibar, collects essays by sixteen prominent philosophers, psychoanalysts, anthropologists, sociologists, and literary critics who each identify, define, and explore a central concept in Balibar’s thought. The contributors examine “Balibar and the Philosophy of the Concept” (Warren Montag), “Anthropological” (Bruce Robbins), “Border-concept” (Stathis Gourgouris), “Civil Religion” (Judith Butler), “Concept” (Etienne Balbar), “Contre- / Counter-” (Bernard E. Harcourt), “Conversion” (Monique David-Ménard), “Cosmopolitics” (Emily Apter), “Interior Frontiers” (Ann Laura Stoler), “Materialism” (Patrice Maniglier), “The Political” (Adi Ophir), “Punishment” (Didier Fassin), “Race” (Hanan Elsayed), “Relation” (Jacques Lezra), “Rights” (J.M. Bernstein), and “Solidarity” (Gary Wilder). The result is a hybrid lexicon-engagement that makes clear the depth and importance of Balibar’s contribution to the most urgent topics in contemporary thought. Each lexical entry/essay makes a startling, novel intervention in current debates, and as a whole Thinking with Balibar offers a model of collaborative critico-political reading of great importance to global academic culture.