Word
Meaning and
Syntax
Fall 2007 — LIN 393S: Word Meaning and Syntax — unique #42370
TTH 3:30 PM- 5:00 PM, CAL 200
Prof. Steve Wechsler
Outline
Readings for the first few weeks are due on the date indicated. All readings will be available on the course website unless I indicate otherwise.
I. Polysemy
A. Thurs. Aug. 30. Introduction
Course syllabus. *David gives Pierre some advices.
B. Tues. Sept. 4. Context-sensitive polysemy
Cruse, D. A. (1995), 'Polysemy and related phenomena from a cognitive linguistic viewpoint', in P. Saint-Dizier and E. Viegas (eds.), Computational Lexical Semantics (Cambridge University Press), 33–49.
Ravin, Yael and Claudia Leacock 2000, 'Polysemy: an overview.' In Ravin, Y. and Leacock, C. (2000), Polysemy: Theoretical and Computational Approaches (Oxford University Press).
[Optional: Krifka, Manfred 1998 (lexical semantics lecture notes): 'Lexical relations'; 'Polysemy and situational meaning']
D. Tues. Sept. 11. Guest lecture
on Computational Approaches to Polysemy, by Prof. Katrin Erk. SLIDES
E. Thurs. Sept. 13. Discussion
of Cruse and Nunberg.
F. Tues. Sept. 18 Generative
theories of polysemy
Copestake,
Ann and Briscoe, Ted
(1995), 'Semi-productive
Polysemy and Sense Extension', Journal of Semantics, 12 (1), 15.
Interlude: Philosophy, anyone?
Quine, 'Two dogmas of empiricism'
Kripke, 'Naming and necessity'
Putnam, 'Meaning and reference'
Fodor, 'The demise of definitions'
II. Lexical atomism.
Case
study: The count-mass distinction
Borer, H. (2005a). Structuring Sense, Volume I: In Name Only. Oxford, Oxford University Press. Sec. 1.1; and Ch. 4 'Some stuff: on the count-mass distinction'
Wechsler, S. (draft) 'Atomist Constructionism'. Draft, UT Austin.
III. Lexical decomposition and
argument structure.
Case study: HAVE
Ch. 8 'Word meaning', from Chierchia, G. and S. McConnell-Ginet. 2000. Meaning and grammar: an introduction to semantics: MIT Press Cambridge, MA, USA.
Fodor, J. A. and Lepore, E. (1998), 'The emptiness of the lexicon: Reflections on James Pustejovsky's The Generative Lexicon', Linguistic Inquiry, 29 (2), 269-88.
Harley, H. (2004), 'Wanting, Having, and Getting: A Note on Fodor and Lepore 1998', Linguistic Inquiry, 35 (2), 255-67.
Richards, N. (2001), 'An idiomatic argument for lexical decomposition', Linguistic inquiry, 32 (1), 183-92.
IV. Linking
Dowty, David (1991), 'Thematic Proto-Roles and Argument Selection', Language, 67.3, 547-619.
Wechsler, S. 2005. Thematic Structure. The Encyclopedia of Language and Linguistics, 2nd edition: Elsevier.
V. Verb Diathesis alternations
Ch. 1 'Introduction', from Levin, Beth (1993), English Verb Classes—A Preliminary Investigation (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Dowty, D. (2000), ''The Garden Swarms with Bees' and the Fallacy of 'Argument Alternation'', in Y. Ravin and C. Leacock (eds.), Polysemy: Theoretical and Computational Approaches (Oxford University Press), 111-28.
Krifka, M. (1999), 'Manner in dative alternation', WCCFL, 18, 260-71.
Bresnan, Joan, et al. (2005), 'Predicting the Dative Alternation', Proceedings of the Royal Netherlands Academy of Science Workshop on Foundations of Interpretation.
VI. Neodavidsonianism: Verbs¨Nouns,
and CAUSE
Dowty, David (1989), 'On the Semantic Content of the Notion of 'Thematic Role'', in Gennaro Chierchia, Barbara H. Partee, and Raymond Turner (eds.), Properties, Types and Meaning—Volume II: Semantic Issues (Dordrecht: Kluwer), 69-129.
Marantz, Alec (1997), 'No Escape from Syntax: Don't Try Morphological Analysis in the Privacy of Your Own Lexicon', U.Penn Working Papers in Linguistics, 4.2, 201-25.
Kratzer, Angelika (1996), 'Severing the external argument from its verb', in J. Rooryck and L. Zaring (eds.), Phrase Structure and the Lexicon (Dordrecht: Kluwer Academic Publishers), 109–37.
Haspelmath, Martin (1993), 'More on the typology of inchoative/causative verb alternations', Causatives and transitivity (Amsterdam: John Benjamins), 87-120.
Wechsler, Stephen to appear. A diachronic account of English deverbal nominals. Proceedings of the 26th West Coast Conference on Formal Linguistics, UC Berkeley, April 27, 2007.
VII.
More on abstract syntax: Nouns¨Verbs
Hale, Kenneth and Keyser, Samuel (1993), 'On Argument Structure and the Lexical Expression of Syntactic Relations', in Kenneth Hale and Samuel Keyser (eds.), The View from Building 20–– Essays in Linguistics in Honor of Sylvain Bromberger (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press).
Kiparsky, Paul (1997), 'Remarks on denominal verbs', in Alex Alsina, Joan Bresnan, and Peter Sells (eds.), Complex Predicates (Stanford: CSLI Publications), 473-99.
VIII. Construction grammar and
its discontents
Goldberg, Adele (1995), Constructions: A Construction Grammar Approach to Argument Structure (Chicago: University of Chicago Press).
Wechsler (draft): 'Usage-based constructionism'
MŸller, Stefan (2006), 'Phrasal or lexical constructions?' Language, 82 (4), 850-83.
Wechsler, S. (2005), 'Weighing in on Scales: a Reply to Goldberg and Jackendoff', Language, 81.2.
IX. Lexicalization of Motion and
Manner
Talmy, L. (1985), 'Lexicalization patterns: Semantic structure in lexical forms', Language Typology and Syntactic Description, 3, 57-149.
Kopecka, Anetta (in press). From a satellite- to a verb-framed pattern: A typological shift in French. In Cuyckens, H., W. De Mulder & T. Mortelmans (eds.), Variation and change in adpositions of movement. Amsterdam / Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.
Zlatev, Jordan and Yangklang, Peerapat (2004), 'A third way to travel: The place of Thai in motion event typology', in S. Stršmqvist and L. Verhoeven (eds.), Relating events in narrative. Vol. 2, Typological and contextual perspectives (Lawrence Erlbaum).
Nikitina, T. (to appear), 'Pragmatic factors and variation in the expression of spatial goals: the case of into vs. in', in Anna Asbury, et al. (eds.), Syntax and Semantics of Spatial P (Amsterdam: John Benjamins).