The Generative Lexicon

Abstract

The first formally elaborated theory of a generative approach to word meaning, The Generative Lexicon lays the foundation for an implemented computational treatment of word meaning that connects explicitly to a compositional semantics. The Generative Lexicon presents a novel and exciting theory of lexical semantics that addresses the problem of the "multiplicity of word meaning"; that is, how we are able to give an infinite number of senses to words with finite means. The first formally elaborated theory of a generative approach to word meaning, it lays the foundation for an implemented computational treatment of word meaning that connects explicitly to a compositional semantics. In contrast to the static view of word meaning (where each word is characterized by a predetermined number of word senses) that imposes a tremendous bottleneck on the performance capability of any natural language processing system, Pustejovsky proposes that the lexicon becomes an active—and central—component in the linguistic description. The essence of his theory is that the lexicon functions generatively, first by providing a rich and expressive vocabulary for characterizing lexical information; then, by developing a framework for manipulating fine-grained distinctions in word descriptions; and finally, by formalizing a set of mechanisms for specialized composition of aspects of such descriptions of words, as they occur in context, extended and novel senses are generated. The subjects covered include semantics of nominals (figure/ground nominals, relational nominals, and other event nominals); the semantics of causation (in particular, how causation is lexicalized in language, including causative/unaccusatives, aspectual predicates, experiencer predicates, and modal causatives); how semantic types constrain syntactic expression (such as the behavior of type shifting and type coercion operations); a formal treatment of event semantics with subevents); and a general treatment of the problem of polysemy. Language, Speech, and Communication series Bradford Books imprint

Subsectividad (cuantitativa y cualitativa): una cuestión de semántica léxica

“…Lo que entendemos por subsectividad cualitativa es muy similar a aquello que Pustejovsky (1995) denomina complementary polysemy: cada contexto de uso activa parte de las propiedades (qualia, en Pustejovsky) asociadas a un sustantivo y esto determina qué aspectos de los potencialmente adscribibles al adjetivo con que se relaciona deben ser tenidos en consideración.…”

Clusters: On the Structure of Lexical Concepts

“…The example of ‘painting a house’ vs ‘painting a car’ illustrates one of the sources of the variability of the correspondence between words and concepts, namely the linguistic context. Some authors refer to this variability as co‐composition (Pustejovsky 1995; Jackendoff 2002). According to them, in linguistic compounds, the conceptual information of lexical entries may determine the conceptual expression of others.…”

“…According to them, in linguistic compounds, the conceptual information of lexical entries may determine the conceptual expression of others. Pustejovsky (1995) holds that such co‐compositions are generative and can be predicted from the knowledge of the canonical decompositions of the concepts involved. This idea can be seen as an amendment of the classical theory: the conceptual structure a word stands for is not always its canonical decomposition, but what conceptual structure a certain word‐token expresses can be calculated on the basis of its canonical decomposition and the canonical decompositions of the words that form part of the sentence it appears in.…”

“…Pustejovsky (1995) has famously applied the co‐composition idea to the study of various cases of polysemous nouns: a lexical entry for a noun, on his view, is associated with a structured conceptual representation which informs about its origins, its purpose, its constitution and its distinguishing properties such as shape, colour, etc. Depending on the linguistic context, one or more of these features comes into focus.…”

The Semantic Distinction Between “Risk” and “Danger”: A Linguistic Analysis

“…( 20, 22 ) This is indeed, since antiquity, the classical way of doing conceptual analysis, but a growing trend in linguistics in recent years is to use corpus data on natural language use to assist semantic analyses. ( 23‐28 ) The corpus linguistics tradition contains some ground‐breaking systematic empirical analyses of the semantics of “risk”; ( 22 , 29‐36 ) in consonance with Luhmann, ( 12 ) those studies that use the theoretical perspective of frame semantics have concluded that elements of decision making and agency are indeed relevant to the semantics of “risk.” ( 29‐31,34 )…”