Meaning and Valency

Ash Asudeh, Gianluca Giorgolo and Ida Toivonen

Abstract

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Proceedings of LFG14; CSLI Publications On-line

We draw together ideas from a number of certain recent proposals in the LFG literature for the encoding of lexical information and the sharing of this information across valencies in a generalized fashion. This forms the beginnings of a theory of the representation and specification of information that sits at the lexicon-syntax-semantics interface. Our formal ingredients are: 1. Templates; 2. Aspects of the regular language of f-descriptions, particularly optionality; 3. Resource-sensitive semantic composition, as captured by Glue Semantics. We provide analyses of passives, cognate objects and benefactives, and demonstrate that the analyses of these phenomena interact properly. We derive a system in which composition is flexible and meaning emerges from the properly constrained interaction of a variety of contributors.



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