Draft for:The Syntax of Aspect,Nomi Erteschik-Shir and Tova Rapoport(eds.).Oxford University Press. Constructions,Lexical Semantics and the Correspondence Principle:Accounting for Generalizations and Subregularities in the Realization of Arguments1
Adele E.Goldberg
University of Illinois
Abstract
Whether particular arguments are overtly realized in languages like English is not random.A number of researchers have put forward sweeping generalizations in order to capture certain general
tendencies.In this paper,however,it is argued that these analyses underestimate the role of
constructions,detailed lexical semantics and discourse factors.Given sufficient attention to these
factors,the general tendencies,as well as productive classes of systematic exceptions,follow without additional grammatical stipulation.
1.Introduction
There exist certain regularities in which arguments tend to be obligatorily expressed in languages like English.A number of researchers have put forward some version of an Argument Realization Principle (ARP)in order to capture these tendencies.In this paper,it is argued that analyses that invoke the ARP fail to account for open-ended classes of counterexamples.On the other hand,attention to constructions, detailed lexical semantics and discourse factors allows us to account for the general tendencies and the productive and systematic classes of exceptions without unnecessary grammatical stipulation.
The present approach to grammar takes speakers’knowledge of language to consist of a network of learned pairings of form and function,or constructions.Constructions are posited whenever there is evidence that speakers cannot predict some aspect of their form,function,or use from other knowledge of language(i.e.,from other constructions already posited to exist).
Constructional approaches make a strong commitment to ultimately try to account for every aspect of knowledge of language.That is,the approach commits itself seriously to a criterion of descriptive adequacy.At the same time,the type of constructional approach adopted here demands that motivation be sought for each construction that is posited.Motivation aims to explain why it is at least possible and at best natural that this particular form-meaning correspondence should exist in a given language.2 Motivation can be provided by,for example,appeal to constraints on acquisition,principles of grammaticalization,discourse demands,iconic principles or general principles of categorization.The requirement that each construction must be motivated provides constructional approaches with explanatory adequacy.
1I would like to thank Knud Lambrecht,Ray Jackendoff,Nomi Erteshik-Shir,Laura Michaelis,Woo-hyoung Nahm and two anonymous reviewers for very helpful discussion on various aspects of this paper. An earlier paper on similar topics,“Argument Realization:the role of constructions,lexical semantics and discourse factors”is to appear in Construction Grammar(s):Cognitive and Cross-language dimension. Jan-Ola?stman and Mirjam Fried(eds.).John Benjamins.
2An account that fully motivates a given construction is ultimately responsible for demonstrating how the construction came to exist and how it can be learned by new generations of speakers.
It is the centrality of the language-specific construction,assumed to be learned on the basis of positive input,that sets constructional approaches apart from traditional generative theories,which often recognize only the most general patterns,failing to account for systematic subregularities that exist.
2.The“Argument Realization Principle”
The following“Argument Realization Principle”has been proposed by a number of researchers:
(ARP)Argument Realization Principle:There must be one argument XP in the syntax to identify each subevent in the event structure template(Grimshaw and Vikner1993;van Hout1996;Rappaport Hovav& Levin1998;Kaufmann and Wunderlich1998;Wright and Levin2000;Rappaport Hovav and Levin2001).3
The relevant subevents alluded to in the ARP include simple actions,causes and states as associated with the sort of decomposition familiar from Vendler(1967)and Dowty(1979),and provided in Table1below:
[x ACT
[x
[BECOME[x
[[x ACT
Table1:Event Structure Templates(from Rappaport Hovav and Levin1998:108)
The ARP requires that at least one argument that is associated with each subevent in an event structure template must be syntactically expressed.
While several classes of systematic exceptions to the ARP are demonstrated below,the principle does account for certain general tendencies.One tendency is for theme arguments to be overtly expressed if a path of motion is predicated of them.For example,the ARP has been invoked in order to account for the unacceptability of example1a(Rappaport Hovav&Levin1998).The message that is intended in1a is that of a caused change of location:an accomplishment in the Dowty/Vender classification.As illustrated
in1b,the analysis assumes that there are two independent subevents:the sweeping action and the motion of the dust onto the floor that is caused by the sweeping.The sweeping action is identified by the subject argument;the motion subevent demands that the theme argument(‘dust’)be overtly realized as well.That is,the ARP requires that both arguments in boldface in1b be overtly expressed as they are in1c.
1a.*Phil swept onto the floor(Rappaport Hovav&Levin1998,example39,pg.120).
1b.Phil ACT
BECOME[dust
1c.Phil swept the dust onto the floor.
A second prediction of the ARP is that causative verbs should obligatorily express the argument that undergoes the change of state in all contexts,since the change of state subevent would have to correspond to some overt argument.That is,the decomposition of a causative expression such as The owl killed its prey is given in2:
2.The owl ACT
BECOME
3The original formulation by Grimshaw and Vikner(1993)allowed adjuncts as well as arguments to “identify”a subevent,but more recent formulations have stated the requirement more strictly,as stated
above.See Goldberg and Ackerman(2001)for evidence that even the original formulation was too strong. In this paper,I will focus on the more restrictive formulation in terms of arguments,which seems to be receiving a lot of attention in the literature.
The ARP stipulates that an argument must identify the second subevent designating a change of state,therefore the patient argument must be overtly expressed.This claim has been made explicitly by a number of researchers(Browne1971;Brisson1994;van Hout1996:5-7;Rappaport Hovav&Levin1998; Ritter and Rosen1998).The idea is supported by the illformedness of the following examples:
3a.*The owl killed.
b.*Chris broke.
Finally,the ARP has been interpreted by some as a biconditional:each subevent must be associated with one and only one syntactic argument.For example,verbs are claimed to be obligatorily transitive if and only if they designate complex events(Hovav Rappaport and Levin1998).According to this claim, verbs that designate single events should never be obligatorily transitive,modulo an independent constraint that all arguments must be recoverable.As predicted,there are clear examples of single-event verbs that readily allow the omission of their second argument.Well-known instances include drink,smoke,sing, bake,read(Fellbaum and Kegl1989;see also Fillmore1986).
3.Counterexamples to the ARP
The ARP initially may appear to be motivated by communicative demands.It may at first seem that the need for semantic recoverability could be invoked to explain why each subevent must be represented in some way by an argument.However,the generalization must be relativized to English,since many languages allow any argument to be unexpressed as long as it represents given and non-contrastive information.This is true for example in Russian,Korean,Chinese,Japanese,Hindi,Hungarian,Arabic, Thai,and Laos(e.g.,Li and Thompson1981;Huang1984;Németh2000).For instance,both arguments can be omitted in Russian in the following conversation despite the fact that there are no arguments that correspond to either subevent of the change-of-state verb buy(see section3.2below):
Russian
Q:“Did Ivan buy a newspaper?”
A:Net,ne kupil.
“No,(he)didn’t buy(it)”
Q:Did you introduce Ivan to Masha?
A:da,predstavil.
“Yes,(I)introduced(him)(to her)”(Franks1995)
Let us,however,concentrate on the extent to which the proposed constraints hold in English.We will examine open-ended classes of counterexamples that violate the generalizations above.These exceptional cases lead us to consider constructional,detailed lexical semantic and discourse factors,and ultimately lead to a deeper understanding of the general tendencies that exist.
3.1.Theme arguments need not uniformly be expressed despite overtly predicated paths
The existence of examples4-9casts doubt on the generality of the explanation of1a repeated below:
1a.*Phil swept onto the floor(Rappaport Hovav&Levin1998,example39,pg.120).
4.Margaret sneezed onto the computer screen.
5.Bill blew/cried into the paper bag.
6.Celia spit into the wind.
7.Nick ate off the floor.
8.Elaine drank from a cup.
9.The pipe leaked into the basement.
In each of examples4-9the theme argument is unexpressed despite the appearance of an overt directional.It is mucus which moves onto the computer screen,air that moves into the bag,spit that moves into the wind,and so on.These examples stand in direct contrast to the unacceptable example with sweep in1a.That is,the semantic decomposition of4,given in4b,is isomorphic with that of1b because both entail the caused motion of a theme to a location.Yet the possibilities of argument realization are distinct.
4b:Pat ACT
BECOME[air
It may be observed that blow and the other verbs in4-9are often classified as intransitive.Still, the principles of argument realization must apply to the semantic decompositions of propositions,not the semantics of verbs in isolation.The propositions expressed in4-9clearly involve two participants:there is an unexpressed theme argument that is caused to move to the location designated by the overt prepositional phrase.In fact,the verbs in examples4-9can optionally appear transitively:
4’.Margaret sneezed mucus onto the computer screen.
5’.Bill blew air into the paper bag.
6’.Celia spit saliva into the wind.
7’.Nick ate crumbs off the floor.
8’.Elaine drank bourbon from a cup.
9’.The pipe leaked water into the basement.
To summarize,the ARP would seem to require the overt expression of the theme argument in expressions that entail a caused change of location,and yet as we saw in4-9,the theme argument is at least optionally unexpressed in many cases.
In many of the acceptable examples4-9,the verb semantically incorporates the theme argument, in the sense that the theme's existence and motion is entailed by the verb(cf.blow,eat,drink).The examples nonetheless stand as counterexamples to the Argument Realization Principle,since the principle is supposed to explain the syntactic realization of arguments.
It might be argued that the semantics is directly reflected in the syntax,and that a direct object is syntactically incorporated into the verb in the examples in4-9.The Argument Realization principle could thus be claimed to really be a constraint on a level of underlying representation.This type of account might garner support from the fact that the verbs is occasionally morphologically related to the corresponding nominal form(spit in6).However,the felicity of other examples(e.g.4,5)undermines such an account since the verbs sneeze and blow do not have nominal morphological counterparts corresponding to their respective theme arguments.
A proponent of a syntactic incorporation account might try to counter that sneeze and blow are actually derived from nouns,and that there is a morphological gap in that the nouns cannot be realized in bare form(cf.related proposals in Lakoff1965;Hale and Keyser1993).However,such an account would still have to explain the difference between sweep in1a and the examples in4-9.What is the independent evidence that would lead one to conclude that verbs in4-9are,despite all appearances,derived from nouns while sweep is not?
Perhaps most fatal to an incorporation proposal is the fact that the theme arguments cannot be said to be semantically incorporated into the meanings of the verbs in all of the cases.Notice that it is quite possible to cry without tears and to sneeze expelling only air.While the relevant theme argument is semantically recoverable,as discussed below,it is not strictly entailed by the semantics of these verbs. Thus the syntactic incorporation account is not viable for these cases.Therefore,it must be concluded that semantic decomposition does not itself directly determine argument realization:the Argument Realization Principle cannot be correct as it stands.
The Argument Realization Principle is further undermined by the fact that verbs of emission and ingestion are not the only class of verbs that can appear without an overt theme argument,despite an overt directional phrase.Verbs of contribution,which happen to involve verbs that are intuitively more lexically transitive than verbs of emission,pattern the same way.Note that the understood theme argument in10a, (the contribution),is not overtly expressed despite the fact that the sentence entails its existence(see10b):
10a.Pat contributed to the Leukemia Foundation.
10b.#Pat contributed to the Leukemia Foundation,but there was nothing she contributed.
Verbs of contribution seem to generally behave like contribute.For example,the verb donate is able to appear in this construction as well:
11.She donated to the Leukemia Foundation.
The verb give normally requires the presence of a theme argument:
12.*She gave to the girl.
However,when give is used with a meaning like that of contribute or donate,it too can appear without an overt theme argument:4
13.She gave to the Leukemia Foundation.
To summarize,we have seen that verbs that can be construed as verbs of emission,ingestion and contribution can readily appear without their theme argument expressed,even when an overt path is predicated of it.We return to offer a motivated account of examples such as those in4-13in section5.The following two sections outline additional classes of counterexamples to the ARP.
3.2.Patient argument of causative verbs need not always be overtly expressed
Recall that the ARP predicts that causative events,which have two subevents,should necessarily always have two overt arguments.We see below,however,that causative verbs often actually allow patient arguments to be omitted under certain discourse conditions.The following examples illustrate this phenomenon:5
14. a.The chef-in-training chopped and diced all afternoon.
b.Owls only kill at night.
c.The famous lecturer always aimed to dazzle/please/disappoint/impress/charm.
d.Pat gave and gave,but Chris just took and took.
e.These revolutionary new brooms sweep cleaner than ever(Aarts1995:85)
f.The kindergartener cut in straight lines.
Clearly each of the examples in14a-f retains its change of state meaning.Example14a designates a scene in which something was chopped and diced,thus undergoing a change of state.Example14b designates a scene in which owls generically cause some unspecified animals to die;14c involves various psychological causative predicates;in14d,Pat causes something to be given to Chris;14e involves an overt result phrase,and in14f some unspecified paper is caused to be cut.We return to offer an account of this type of exception in section6.The following section observes a final set of counterexamples to the ARP.
3.3Some simple events are obligatorily transitive
Levin and Rappaport Hovav(1998)and Wright and Levin(2000)adopt the ARP as a biconditional:there may be no more obligatory arguments than there are subevents.Their argument rests on a single class of
4The observation about give is due to Charles Fillmore(personal communication1990).
5In an indepth survey of various types of omitted argument,Cote(1996:130ff)classifies omitted arguments of this type as“Arbitrary Null Objects,”but suggests that the class is highly lexically constrained to include warn,advise,amuse and closely related verbs with animate patient arguments.She further observes that the generic interpretation is often required.We see here that a great variety of verbs can appear with this type of omitted argument,regardless of the animacy of the patient argument. Genericity does seem to be a sufficient although not necessary interpretation for the action as discussed below.These cases are a subtype of“Indefinite Null Complementation”(Fillmore1986),and would also fall under the heading of“Lexically Conditioned Intransitivity”(Fellbaum and Kegl1989),although we argue here that such expressions are licensed by a construction that applies broadly across lexical items.
simple event verbs:verbs of surface contact.They argue that verbs of surface contact are never
obligatorily transitive,as long as the omitted argument is semantically recoverable.However,there is at least one subclass of verbs of surface contact that systematically resists object omission.Consider the examples below involving the verbs of surface contact,pet,stroke,and caress:
15.Context:Pat observes Chris petting a cat.
Chris pet*(her)yesterday,too.
16.Context:Chris approaches a cat that is known to bite.
You’d better not stroke*(it)!
17.Context:Pat and Bob were very affectionate at the restaurant.
They caressed*(each other)throughout the meal.
The contexts above make each of the omitted arguments semantically recoverable,and yet the second argument is nonetheless obligatorily expressed.If we consider other verbs that are stative or activities,and therefore according to the decompositions in Table1involve only a single event,we find other counterexamples including the following:
18.*She drafted.
b.*She imbibed.
c.*She sautée
d.
To summarize,we have seen several classes of counterexamples to the broad claim that each subevent must be“identified”by exactly one argument(the Argument Realization Principle).The principle was proposed on the basis of English data,but many languages,including Russian,Korean,Chinese,Japanese, Hindi,Hungarian,Arabic,Thai,and Laos routinely allow arguments to be omitted where English does not. Therefore the ARP must be parameterized in some way to account for these differences.Moreover,even in English,we have seen instances in which the motion subevent is not necessarily identified by an overt argument,instances in which a causal subevent is not necessarily identified by an overt argument,and instances in which there are two obligatory arguments despite there being only one event.
4.Constructional Approach
What are the empirical generalizations?There appear to be two fairly robust generalizations as outlined in section2.In English:
(I)If motion is predicated of a theme argument,the theme argument is generally overtly
expressed.
(II)If a change of state is predicated of a patient argument,the patient argument is generally overtly expressed.
We return to account for the exceptions to these tendencies in sections5-7,but the question we address first is,how can we motivate these empirical generalizations that the ARP was intended to capture?
There is a growing recognition that it is important to recognize a distinction between the frame semantics associated with a verb and the set of phrasal patterns or argument structure constructions that are available for expressing clauses(Gleitman et al.1995;Goldberg1992,1995,to appear;Rappaport Hovav and Levin1998;Iwata2000;Jackendoff1997,2002;Kay Ms-2001;Pinker1994).Let us take it as a working assumption that the overt expression of arguments is determined by two interacting factors:lexical semantics and constructions.As noted in the introduction,constructions are conventional pairings of form and function.
Constructions that capture argument structure generalizations,like lexical predicates,have semantic roles associated with them;following Goldberg(1995),these are termed argument roles and correspond roughly to traditional thematic roles such as agent,patient,instrument,source,theme,location, etc.At the same time,because they are defined in terms of the semantic requirements of particular constructions,argument roles in this framework are more specific and numerous than traditional thematic roles.The role labels are simply intended as shorthand to capture the semantic properties associated with slots in an argument structure construction.
Only certain argument roles are considered“profiled”or particularly discourse-prominent.6In the case of simple English clauses,only roles that are realized as subject,direct object,or the second object in ditransitives are considered profiled.These are the same grammatical relations that receive a special status in most theories as the set of“terms”which correspond to“core,”“nuclear”or“direct”arguments.Roles encoded by the subject,object or second object grammatical relations have a high degree of discourse prominence,typically being either topical or focal in the discourse(see Keenan1976,1984;Comrie1984; Fillmore1977,Langacker1987for arguments to this effect.).
Argument roles capture generalizations over individual verbs’participant roles.That is,each verb is assumed to be conventionally associated with a certain number of participant roles.Only a subset of those roles,namely those roles that are lexically profiled,are obligatorily expressed,or if unexpressed receive a definite interpretation.7Lexical profiling,parallel to argument profiling,is designed to indicate which participant roles associated with a verb’s meaning are obligatorily accessed,function as focal points within the scene,and achieve a special degree of prominence.Fillmore(1977)similarly notes that certain participant roles are obligatorily“brought into perspective”achieving a certain degree of“salience.”The notion of lexical profiling is intended to be a semantic one:it is a stable aspect of a word’s meaning,and can differentiate the meaning difference between lexical items—cf.buy vs sell(Fillmore1977)or rob vs steal(Goldberg1995).Certain types of argument roles are inherently more likely than others to be profiled and therefore obligatorily expressed.For example,animate roles are generally more salient and central to the scene being expressed than place or location roles(Clark1978;Goldberg1995).
To summarize:
(A)Participant roles:roles associated with a sense of a verb
E.g.,sneeze has one participant role,the sneezer;kick has two participant roles,the kicker and
the kickee.
Profiled participant roles:a subset of participant roles that are normally obligatorily expressed or receive a definite interpretation in a language like English.
E.g.,the sneezer role of sneeze is profiled;the kicker kick is also profiled but the kickee role is
not since the kickee role is not obligatory(The dancer kicked high).
(B)Argument roles:roles associated with an argument structure construction
E.g.,the agent,theme,recipient roles of the ditransitive construction or the cause,theme,
path/location roles of the caused motion construction
Profiled argument roles:roles of a construction that appear as subject,object or the second object of ditransitives,i.e.,as particularly discourse-prominent grammatical relations.
A participant role of the verb must be“fused”with an argument role of a construction in order for it to be overtly expressed.8Fusion can be considered a type of unification in that the constraints on both roles must be simultaneously met by the argument instantiating the two roles.
6The term“profiling”is borrowed from Langacker(1987,1991)who uses it in a slightly different way to capture which aspects of a rich semantic structure are designated by an expression.For example the profiled entity corresponding to the concept hypotenuse is the longest line of a right triangle.The rest of the right triangle is part of the“base”of the concept hypotenuse and is not profiled.
7Again,this generalization is true for English.In many other languages,lexically profiled roles are also expressed by a small set of core grammatical relations,when they are expressed.However,in these other languages these arguments are frequently omitted under varying conditions:roughly when they are given and non-contrastive in the context.
8The term“fusion”is adapted from Jackendoff’s(1990)use of the same term to refer to the combination of two sets of semantic constraints on distinct but coindexed slots within a given lexical entry;the term is used here to designate the relation holding between a participant role of a verb and an argument role of a construction when the two are simultaneously instantiated by one argument.
Two principles constrain the ways in which the participant roles of a verb and the argument roles of a construction can be fused:the Semantic Coherence Principle and the Correspondence Principle,as stated in(C)and(D)below:
(C)The Semantic Coherence principle:the participant role of the verb and the argument role of the construction must be semantically compatible.In particular,the more specific participant role of the verb must be construable as an instance of the more general argument role.General categorization processes are responsible for this categorization task and it is always operative.
(D)The Correspondence Principle:the semantically salient profiled participant roles are encoded by grammatical relations that provide them a sufficient degree of discourse prominence:i.e.,by profiled argument roles.An exception arises if a verb has three profiled roles;in this case,one can be represented by an unprofiled argument role(and realized as an oblique argument).The Correspondence Principle can be overridden by specifications of particular constructions.
The Correspondence Principle ensures that lexical semantics and discourse pragmatics are in general aligned.In particular,it requires that profiled participant roles are encoded by grammatical relations that provide them a sufficient degree of discourse prominence.The intuition is that the participants that are highly relevant to a verb’s meaning are likely to be ones that are relevant or important to the discourse,since this particular verb was chosen from among other lexical alternatives.
Importantly,the Correspondence Principle is a default principle.Certain constructions can specifically override it in various ways.For example,constructions can increase the prominence of an argument(e.g.,Topicalization,Cleft constructions),and constructions can also deemphasize a particular argument.The construction that is to be the focus of sections6is an instance of the latter type,involving the deemphasis of what is normally a profiled participant role.
These definitions and principles are not ad hoc in the sense that they were designed to account for the interactions of verbs with a number of different constructions including the ditransitive,the resultative (intransitive and transitive),the“locative”alternation and the caused-motion constructions(intransitive and transitive)(see Goldberg1995,2002).
With these basic definitions and principles in mind,we can account for the general tendencies in (I)and(II),repeated below,without any grammatical stipulation whatsoever.
(I)If motion is predicated of a theme argument,the theme argument is generally overtly expressed.
(II)If a change of state is predicated of a patient argument,the patient argument is generally overtly expressed.
The theme argument of a change of location predication and a patient argument of a change of state predicate are normally profiled:that is,they are central participants within the scene and are obligatorily accessed for the semantic representation of the scene.One typically does not assert that a participant changes state or location unless one wishes to discuss or draw attention to that participantThe default Correspondence Principle insures profiled participants will be overtly expressed in languages like English.9Thus the semantics of change-of-state and change-of-location predications together with the Correspondence Principle accounts for the generalizations in(I)and(II)straightforwardly.
Because the Correspondence Principle is a default principle,we expect there to be other constructions which explicitly serve to allow for particular contexts in which a theme or patient argument is intended to be deemphasized in the discourse.The following two sections propose and motivate two such constructions,the Implicit Theme Construction and the Deprofiled Object Construction.These constructions are argued to account for the type of exceptions we saw to(I)and(II)in sections3.1and3.2.
5.The Implicit Theme Construction
9Moreover it predicts that they will be expressed as core grammatical relations,which they are.
In this section we account for facts discussed in section3.1.Recall that verbs of emission,ingestion and contribution can appear without an overtly expressed theme argument,violating the tendency in(I).These facts can naturally be accounted for by recognizing the existence of a particular grammaticalized construction in the grammar of English:the Implicit Theme Construction.The identity of the theme argument is semantically recoverable by an inference(or in some cases an entailment)based on the meaning of the verb.The construction conventionally appears only with certain classes of verbs:verbs of emission,ingestion and contribution.Sweep does not occur in this construction because it cannot be construed as falling into one of these classes(recall1a*Phil swept onto the floor).
The construction can be represented as follows:
Semantics:CAUSE-MOTION(source theme direction)
||
PRED emission,ingestion,contribution() Syntax:Subj?Oblique
Figure1:The Implicit Theme Construction
The top line of Figure1represents the semantics of the construction:the caused motion of a theme from a source in a particular direction.Figure1also specifies the way the semantic arguments are overtly realized syntactically:the source argument is linked with the subject,the location/direction argument is linked with an oblique argument,and the theme argument is unexpressed.“PRED”represents a variable over verb meaning.In Figure1,PRED is subscripted with the particular verb classes that can appear in this construction.Lines between argument roles and participant roles of the verb are of two types:solid lines indicate that the construction’s argument role must be fused with a participant role of the verb;dashed lines indicate that the argument role may be fused with a participant role of the verb but may alternatively be contributed solely by the construction.Profiled argument and participant roles are indicated by boldface.
Meaningful differences between individual expressions can be attributed to differences in lexical items.For example,blow,as a verb of emission,requires that the person blowing be agentive;sneeze only requires that the person sneezing be a source.These facts are captured since each argument must satisfy both the argument role of the construction and the participant role of the verb.The agentivity of blow comes from the verb;the construction only demands a source role.
A few examples may be useful.In the case of verbs of contribution,the combination of verb and construction is as follows:
Semantics:CAUSE-MOTION(source theme direction)
||
contribute(contributor contribution goal) Syntax:Subj?Oblique
Figure3:The Implicit Theme Construction with contribute
In this case,a participant role of the verb is fused with each one of the argument roles of the construction.In accord with the Principle of Semantic Coherence,the contributor role is fused with the source role since the contributor can be construed as a type of source;similarly the contribution role is fused with the theme,and the goal role is fused with the direction,since the first can in both cases be construed as an instance of the second.The construction ensures that the theme/contribution role is not overtly expressed.
In the case of verbs of emission such as sneeze,the single profiled sneezer participant is fused with the source argument of the construction.The implicit theme argument and the overt directional are contributed by the construction to yield examples such as,Margaret sneezed onto the computer screen,as represented in Figure2.
Semantics CAUSE-MOTION(source theme direction)
||
sneeze(sneezer)
Syntax:SubjˉOblique
Figure2:The Implicit Theme Construction with sneeze
Because sneeze must be construed as a verb of emission in order to appear in this construction,the implicit theme argument must be some type of emission,and not some external object such as a napkin. That is19a is not an available interpretation for19b:
19a.Pat sneezed the napkin onto the floor.
19b.Pat sneezed onto the floor.
It might be suggested that all of the examples cited in section3.1should be accounted for by specifying separate special lexical entries for each of the verbs involved,instead of positing a construction.For example,contribute might quite plausibly have the following entry directly:
5.1.Motivating the Implicit Theme Construction
As noted in the introduction,it is necessary to motivate the construction if we wish it to be explanatory.As many have noted,semantic recoverability is a necessary condition on argument omission(cf.Rice1988; Fellbaum and Kegl1989;Resnik1993;Cote1996;Lambrecht and Lemoine1998;Goldberg2000). Speakers will simply not be understood if they refer to unexpressed arguments that are not recoverable in context.Importantly,the unexpressed theme argument is semantically recoverable for verbs of emission, ingestion and contribution.10
In addition,as noted above,all of the verbs that can appear with a directional and without a theme can also appear intransitively without the directional.That is,the theme-type argument of the verb is not lexically profiled(obligatory),even as it is used in other contexts.
10Goldberg(to appear)suggested that concerns about politeness further motivated this construction,since it is often not polite to mention bodily emissions on one hand or amounts of money that are donated on the other.Recognition that verbs of ingestion can occur in this construction as well as verbs of emission(as pointed out to me by Ray Jackendoff,personal communication),however,weakens the idea that the construction is motivated by politeness,since it is a rare context where it would be impolite to mention particular food or drinks.
At the same time,semantic recoverability is not a sufficient constraint.The theme argument of sweep in1a,namely dust,is also recoverable and yet this example is categorically unacceptable.It seems that we need to recognize classes of verbs that are conventionally allowed(cf.also Pinker1989;Levin 1993;Goldberg1995).
6.The deprofiled object construction:omission under low discourse prominence
In this section,we account for examples14a-f in3.2(e.g.,Owls only kill at night).As noted above,the semantic requirement of recoverability must be satisfied,and as expected it is in each of these.A further discourse condition is necessary to license the object omission in this type of example:
Principle of Omission under Low Discourse Prominence:
Omission of the patient argument is possible when the patient argument is construed to be
deemphasized in the discourse visàvis the action.That is,omission is possible when the patient
argument is not topical(or focal)in the discourse,and the action is particularly emphasized(via
repetition,strong affective stance,contrastive focus,etc.).(Goldberg2000)
The definition of focus assumed in the characterization above is a traditional one.Halliday (1967:204),for example writes“Information focus is one kind of emphasis,that whereby the speaker marks out a part(which may be the whole)of a message block as that which he wishes to be interpreted as informative."Similarly Lambrecht(1994:218)defines the focus relation as relating“the pragmatically non-recoverable to the recoverable component of a proposition and thereby creates a new state of information in the mind of the addressee.”Cross-linguistically,focal elements must be expressed.This follows from the fact that they are not predictable:they must be expressed in order to be identified.
A topic can be defined as a“matter of[already established]current interest which a statement is about and with respect to which a proposition is to be interpreted as relevant”(Lambrecht1994:119;see also Gundel1988:210).Thus a topical argument is an argument that is both given or recoverable,and about which the proposition is relevant.It follows from this definition that topicality should be recognized as a matter of degree:a proposition can be relevant to an argument to more or less extent.As a very weak necessary condition on topicality,we can use the criterion of anaphoricity.Arguments that are at all topical should be available for subsequent anaphoric reference,since they are by definition elements that are relevant to the discourse.As predicted,since the omitted arguments are by hypothesis non-topical,they do not provide ready discourse antecedents:11
24.The owl only kills at night.*It is easier to catch then.
25.The chef chopped and diced all day.*It was put into a large bowl.
While English normally requires that topical elements be expressed,the Principle above allows for them to be omitted when the action is particulary emphasized.Emphasis is intended as a cover term for several different ways in which an action is construed to be especially prominent in the discourse.These include the following:
26.Pat gave and gave but Chris just took and took.Repeated Action
27.Owls only kill at night.Generic action
28.She picked up her carving knife and began to chop.Narrow focus
29.Why would they give this creep a light prison term!?He murdered!12Strong Affective Stance
30.“She stole but she could not rob.”(Beatles:She came in through the Bathroom Window)Contrastive
Focus 11The anaphoricity condition is a necessary but not sufficient condition on topicality,since focal elements,
being discourse-prominent,are also available for subsequent anaphoric reference.
12I thank Christiane Fellbaum and Knud Lambrecht for suggesting several of these examples.
Languages differ in their grammatical possibilities for argument omission.Again,no languages allow focal elements to be omitted.In many languages including Chinese,Japanese,Korean,Hindi,Hungarian and Laos any topical argument(or more generally any given argument)that is non-contrastive can be omitted.In English,with a few lexical exceptions(cf.Fillmore1986),all topical arguments must be expressed.However what we have seen in this section is that if the action is particularly emphasized(by repetition,contrast,etc.),it is possible to omit arguments that are both predictable(non-focal)and non-relevant(non-topical)in English.This combination of discourse and syntactic characteristics can be represented by the following construction,which is labeled,the Deprofiled Object Construction(DOC). Prag:P(….pat/theme)
(emphasized)(deemphasized:non-topical,non-focal)
Pred(…)
Syn:V Subjˉ
Figure4.The Deprofiled Object Construction(DOC)
The top line in Figure4captures the pragmatic constraints on the construction.In particular,the predicate is emphasized(indicated by the underlined and boldface P),and the patient or theme profiled participant role is deemphasized in being both non-topical and non-focal.The fact that the theme or patient argument is omitted syntactically is captured by the“ˉ”.
6.1.Motivation for the Deprofiled Object Construction
Motivation for the construction comes from the fact that it is not necessary to mention non-focal,non-topical arguments since they are predictable and non-relevant in the discourse.Following Grice’s maxim of Quantity(second half)to“say no more than is necessary”there is motivation to leave these particular arguments out.
Moreover,the fact that the predicate must be emphasized in some way indicates that the construction may be further motivated by a different kind of quantity generalization.There appears to be some kind of trade-off in just how much information is expressed by the object vs the predicate.That is, the object seems to be more likely to be deemphasized to the point of being omissible when the predicate is emphasized.Precedent for this general type of trade-off exists.For example,Brown(forthcoming)finds that in Tzeltal,semantically“heavier”verbs are more likely to allow object omission;for example,k’ux “eat mush stuff”allows object omission more readily than tun“eat(anything).”Cacoullous and Hernandez (1999)likewise document the use of Mexican Spanish le as an intensifier,which they describe as emphasizing the verb by deemphasizing the object argument.Other generalizations about how much is naturally expressed in a given clause have been proposed previously(Givón1975;Chafe1987;DuBois 1987).13These precedents make the generalizations about the DOC more natural or motivated.
We have accounted for instances in which an argument that the ARP predicts should necessarily be expressed is in fact omitted.In the following section we address the converse phenomenon:arguments that the ARP predicts should be omissible without special context,but which are nonetheless obligatory (except as expected under the discourse conditions captured by the DOC construction of this section).
7.Accounting for smoke-type verbs
13There is a difference between the Givón-Chafe-DuBois generalization,“Prefer only one lexical mention per clause”in that we have not claimed that there is a preference for object omission in the DOC context, only that the context allows for omission.
In this section we first address the question of why a certain class of normally transitive verbs readily appear intransitively.These verbs include smoke,drink,sing,and write.The ARP predicts that they should be optionally intransitive and in fact they are.Notice that discourse constraints described in the previous section do not need to hold in order for these verbs to appear intransitively.The action need not be emphasized;it is possible to say for example,Pat smoked today,if only a single instance of smoking occurred and there is no other type of contextual emphasis.
Interestingly,the same set of verbs occurs frequently in a context that does fall within the purvue of the DOC construction,namely:in generic contexts with a habitual interpretation:e.g.,Pat smokes;Pat drinks; Chris sings;Sam writes.The frequent appearance of the verbs in this context has apparently led to the grammaticalization of a lexical option for these verbs,whereby they can appear intransitively in less constrained contexts.That is,if a verb appears frequently in a particular discourse context,which generally allows the omission of the non-subject argument,the omission may over time become a conventional or grammaticalized option for that verb,through a process of reanalysis.Listeners reanalyze the frequently encountered intransitive use of the verb as a lexical option instead of as being licensed by the particular discourse context via the DOC construction.14More specifically,while the verb drink clearly has two participant roles,the drinker and the liquid,the liquid role is not profiled and thus can be omitted. Supporting the idea that the high frequency of these verbs was crucial to their historical reanalysis is the fact that verbs which are near synonyms but which have lower frequencies,do not readily allow object omission:
26.Pat drank/#imbibed last night.
27.Pat read/#perused last night.
28.Pat wrote/#drafted last night.
Low frequency verbs such as imbibe,peruse and draft do not appear frequently in the DOC context since they do not have very high overall frequency.Thus their possible,but rare appearance in the DOC context has not enabled a reanalysis to occur in which the intransitive use is understood to be a lexical option.Thus recognizing the Deprofiled Object Construction can motivate both currently productive cases and also lexicalized“idiosyncratic”cases.The failure of the verbs such as imbibe,peruse,and draft to appear intransitively is unexpected,on the other hand,by an account that claims that any single-event verb should be able to appear intransitively.
Other obligatorily transitive verbs with simple event structure directly contradict the predictions of the ARP.These include the verbs of surface contact mentioned in section3.3:pet,stroke,and caress.The transitivity of these particular verbs can be motivated by their lexical semantics:we normally pet,stroke,or caress animate beings.Animate participants are typically prominent in the discourse(cf.Clark1978; Goldberg1995).That is,animate participant roles tend to be profiled,and therefore normally need to be expressed in languages like English that require the expression of profiled participants.Of course,in the special discourse context captured by the DOC construction,they can,as expected,be made less prominent, and therefore omitted:
29.The devoted zoo-keeper patted and stroked all day.
30.The well-trained masseuse always caressed with a firm hand.
Of course arguments do not need to be animate in order to be prominent and lexically profiled.Since profiled status is taken to be lexically determined,we expect there to be still other transitive verbs with simple event structure.And in fact other exceptions are not hard to come by.For example,single-event statives including like,hate,weigh,cost are all obligatorily2-argument verbs.
14It is sometimes claimed that this use of drink necessarily implies that Pat drinks alcohol.As Cote(1996) observes,it is possible to use drink intransitively in a context in which Pat is a patient who just had an operation on her esophagus,in which case her ability to drink anything at all could be at issue.At the same time,the fact that the generic sentence Pat drinks is most commonly uttered in contexts in which alcohol is the relevant beverage gives further credence to the idea that the lexical option arose historically from repeated use in the generic context.
7.Conclusion
The Argument Realization Principle claims that each subevent must be“identified”by exactly one overt argument.However,we have observed that this is blatantly contradicted by many languages in which no overt arguments are strictly obligatory.Moreover,even in English,the proposal is counterexemplified by expressions in which a motion subevent is not necessarily identified(section3.1)and instances in which a causal subevent is not necessarily identified(section3.2).Moreover there are clear instances of verbs with two obligatory arguments despite having only one subevent(section3).
The accurate empirical generalizations are these:
In English,
I.the theme argument is generally expressed if a path is predicated of it,
II.the patient argument is generally expressed if a change of state is
predicated of it.
These general tendencies were argued to follow from the nature of profiling and the Correspondence Principle:arguments that are particularly prominent are normally obligatorily expressed.Moreover,they are normally expressed by certain“core”grammatical relations.
Two classes of exceptions to these general tendencies were identified,and independently motivated constructions were posited to capture their systematic nature.Exceptions to the idea that a theme argument is necessarily expressed if a path is predicated of it were captured by the Implicit Theme Construction.Exceptions to the second tendency were captured by the Deprofiled Object Construction.
Cross-linguistic differences are captured in two ways.First,the status of profiled participant roles differs cross-linguistically.While in English profiled participants are necessarily expressed unless a specific construction serves to deemphasize them,in many if not most languages,they are necessarily expressed only if they are not given or if they are focal.The Principle of Correspondence is presumed to be the same across languages insofar as lexically profiled roles are expressed by core grammatical relations when they are expressed.The inventory of constructions is a second source of cross-linguistic variation. We have seen that each construction is motivated,but its existence is not strictly predictable.Thus the inventory of constructions is expected to differ cross-linguistically.
We have seen that sweeping generalizations that are intended to be exceptionless are oversimplified.The Correspondence Principle captures the tendency to align lexical and discourse prominence and allows us to capture the observed general tendencies.At the same time,the Correspondence Principle can be overridden by the specifications of particular constructions.Perhaps the most central reason for there being more than one possible construction available to express a given proposition is that the variety of constructions provide alternative ways of packaging information structure (Lambrecht1994).We have seen examples of constructions that serve to deemphasize an argument:the Implicit Theme Construction and the Deprofiled Object Construction.Attention to these specific constructions and their motivation allows us to account for open-ended classes of exceptions to the general tendencies noted above.
One might attempt to criticize the constructional approach by claiming that the constructions are ad hoc means of accounting for exceptional cases.However,each construction is motivated by independent factors.The Deprofiled Object Construction is motivated by the idea that arguments that are not prominent in the discourse need not be expressed.The Implicit Theme Construction is motivated by the high degree of semantic predictability of the omitted argument.Therefore,these constructions serve clear communicative functions:that is,their existence is motivated and not arbitrary or ad hoc.Moreover, the general tendencies are naturally captured by the Correspondence Principle together with an understanding of which arguments are likely to be lexically profiled.
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从语义学角度谈汉语中的歧义现象 摘要：语言学家普遍认为, 歧义现象是指一个句子的含义模棱两可, 可以作两种或多种解释。歧义是一种普遍的语言现象,存在于一切自然语言之中。本文尝试从语义学角度对汉语中的歧义现象进行分析，对引起歧义的各种因素进行剖析，指出歧义在实际的语言应用中的影响，并提出一些消除歧义的手段。 关键词：语义学，汉语歧义，歧义成因，消除歧义 一、文献综述 语义学是研究语言意义以及语言表达之间的意义关系的学科。语义学研究自然语言的语义特征；它把语义作为语言的一个组成部分去研究，探讨它的性质、内部结构及其变异和发展以及语义间的关系等。 “语义学”这一术语是由法国语言学家Michel Breal 在1893 年首先提出来的。1897 年,Breal 编著的《语义学探索》一书问世,标志着今天所理解的语义学开始逐步形成。1900 年,这本书被译成英文,书名为Semantics : Studies in the Science of Meaning。这本书是第一部语言语义学著作,其研究的重点在词义的历史发展方面,兼顾词汇意义和语法意义。随后，语义学的发展经历了一个曲折的过程。语义学在19 世纪末、20 世纪初开始成为一门独立的学科,50 年代逐步显露发展势头,从70 年代起才获得了充分的发展。随着越来越多的语言学家开始关注和研究语义学，发表关于语义学的著作，语义学逐渐成为一个成熟的体系。 近十年来，现代语义学呈现出多学科、跨学科、多纬度和多层次的几个显著的特点。如果说传统的语义学研究主要局限在词汇意义层次的话,现代语义学的最大特点之一是对语言意义的多层次的考察。笔者经过对近十年的文献研究发现，认知语义学和规范语义学是当代国际语义学研究的两大主流取向。认知语义学就是在认知学的框架内研究语义,对心智进行经验性的研究，它对传统形式语义学的外部缺陷有着深刻的认识，是当代一个热门的研究方向。规范语义学的核心概念是形式体系,即一种抽象的模型结构,模型的抽象性意味着广泛的语义空间,进而彰显出语义自身的自由度。从蒙塔古最初建立规范语义学到后来克里普克等人的继续发展,出现了诸如类型理论,模态理论范畴语法,博弈语义学等新的学说,特别是后来帕蒂等人对蒙塔古语义学的不断完善,充分表明了规范语义学具有极强的生命力。 而国内近十年的语义学研究也遍布了语言研究的各个方面。主要有以下几个方向：对认知语义学的研究，例如张辉的《认知语义学述评》；对框架语义学的研究，例如陶明忠、马玉蕾合著的《框架语义学———格语法的第三阶段》；语义学在对隐喻的研究中的应用，例如于莹的《认知语义学框架下的隐喻研究》；对语义学与语用学之间的关系的研究，例如康灿辉的《试论语义学与语用学的互补性》；对语义学的实际应用的研究，例如王向君的《浅谈语义学与语法教学》。而对于歧义现象的语义学研究主要是对英语中的歧义现象进行研究，例如高桂莲、陈颖、王海岩合著的《对英语歧义现象的语义分析》，却鲜有对汉语中歧义现象的语义分析。所以本文尝试从语义学角度对汉语中的歧义现象进行分析，对引起歧义的各种因素进行剖析，指出歧义在实际的语言应用中的影响，并提出一些消除歧义的手段。 二、歧义的成因 语言学家普遍认为, 歧义现象是指一个句子的含义模棱两可, 可以作两种或多种解释。语言是一种约定俗成的社会现象, 而不是人们根据科学规律创造出来的, 因此, 不论哪种语言都存在大量的歧义现象。引起歧义的原因有很多，下面笔者将对歧义的主要成因进行分类和剖析。 （一）、语音歧义 汉语中的语音歧义多是由于汉语的一个音节可以对应多个不同的语素引起的，一般存在于口语中。语音歧义主要可以分成以下三种情况。 1、同音字引起的歧义 例句：甲：“请问您贵姓？” 乙：“免贵姓zhang。” 在这个例句中，zhang既可以是“张”，也可以是“章”。在汉语中，有很多读音相同但拼写和意义不同的汉字，因此容易产生语音歧义。 2、一词多音引起的歧义
一、语言和语言学 1、语言的区别性特征：Design of features of language 任意性arbitrariness 指语言符号和它代表的意义没有天然的联系 二重性duality 指语言由两层结构组成 创造性creativity 指语言可以被创造 移位性displacement 指语言可以代表时间和空间上不可及的物体、时间、观点 2、语言的功能（不是很重要） 信息功能informative 人际功能interpersonal 施为功能performative 感情功能emotive function 寒暄功能phatic communication 娱乐功能recreational function 元语言功能metalingual function 3、语言学主要分支 语音学phonetics 研究语音的产生、传播、接受过程，考查人类语言中的声音 音位学phonology研究语音和音节结构、分布和序列 形态学morphology研究词的内部结构和构词规则 句法学syntax 研究句子结构，词、短语组合的规则 语义学semantics 不仅关心字词作为词汇的意义，还有语言中词之上和之下的意义。如语素和句子的意义 语用学pragmatics 在语境中研究意义 4、宏观语言学macrolingustics 心理语言学psycholinguistics社会语言学sociolinguistics 人类语言学anthropological linguistics计算机语言学computational linguistics 5语言学中的重要区别 规定式和描写式：规定式：prescriptive说明事情应该是怎么样的 描写式：descriptive说明事情本来是怎么样的 共时研究和历时研究：共时：synchronic研究某个特定时期语言 历时：diachronic 研究语言发展规律 语言和言语：语言：langue指语言系统的整体 言语：parole指具体实际运用的语言 语言能力和语言运用：乔姆斯基(chomsky提出) 能力：competence用语言的人的语言知识储备 运用：performance真实的语言使用者在实际中的语言使用 二、语音学 1、语音学分支 发音语音学articulatory phonetics研究语言的产生 声学语言学acoustic phonetics研究语音的物理属性 听觉语音学auditory phonetics研究语言怎样被感知 2 IPA（国际音标）是由daniel Jones琼斯提出的 三、音位学 1、最小对立体minimal pairs 2、音位phoneme
北语汉语国际教育学部考研复试经验 北语汉语国际教育学部考研复试公共课的复习 对于公共课的复习，我想最重要的是要控制自己的贪欲，不要在海量的资料中迷失。时间有限你不会看完所有的资料，即便它们看上去都很美很真实。选择被时间验证过的经典书目可以有效避免浪费宝贵时间，最好的方式是向前辈咨询而不是听信各种宣传。 无论英语政治还是专业课，最基础的教材都是第一位的，任何技巧都是在基础知识之上的。技巧并非投机取巧，它可以让你用最短的时间掌握对考试最有价值的东西，而努力仍是必须的。课本和历年真题是基础，其他的资料只是帮助你更好的理解考点。 （一）北语汉语国际教育学部考研复试英语 在英语方面我不是牛人，但近两年的学习自己也深得体会。不论你之前的英语功底有多好，考研英语都不能怠慢。因为考研英语是几位灭绝师太凑在一起将一篇浅显的文章修改地千疮百孔之后拿来考我们，所以有时是不能用正常的思维顺序去思考的。读懂文章是一方面，做对题是另一方面。而对考研单词的熟悉程度、阅读速度和对真题逻辑的研读是应对一切的法宝。首先，单词是重中之重。 考研阅读本身就包含大量生词，需要联系上下文猜测，试想，如果你连最基本的单词都不认识，还怎么猜测。我习惯背小一点的单词书，总觉得大的单词书虽然每个词的意义概括的很全面，但是不方便记忆，常常是看了半天才翻过去一页，效果不好，也没有成就感。如果你不放心，可以买两种，小的用来记忆，大的当字典用来查阅。我当时买了星火的便携本。每天用一小时的时间记两三单元，前几遍先记基本意思和自己原本知道的偏义，因为考研英语虽然很少考基本意思，但考察的引申义从语境中也能根据基本义进行推断。这样反复过多次之后，我用书签盖住意思，然后看单词想它的意思，开始反应有点慢，反复过几次后逐渐快了。我觉得这个过程很重要，因为对单词的反应程度会决定阅读的速度。这之后仍有一些顽固的单词记不住，我把他们写在五颜六色的小卡片上，正面是单词，背面是意思，前前后后整理了近二十摞。 每天快下自习的前几分钟就拿出来看一小摞，感觉效果很不错。对于真题中的单词我也是用这种方法记，不知道单词书和小卡片被我翻了多少遍，到最后一两周，为了节省时间背政治，我只看自己小卡片上不熟的单词，直到考研的前一天我还在背单词，不是因为还没记住，只是想保持看到单词的灵敏度和熟悉度。这种记单词的方法真得很受用。
Vol.28No.3 M ar.2012 赤峰学院学报（自然科学版）Journal of Chifeng University （Natural Science Edition ）第28卷第3期（下） 2012年3月英语习语凝聚了英语民族人民的勤劳和智慧，是英语语言国家历史文化发展的结晶，体现了英语国家丰富的历史文化背景.学习英语习语可以成为英语专业学生学习和了解英语语言文化的一扇窗.可是，英语习语却因其结构与语义之间的差异，涉及面广泛繁杂，大多与民族历史发展、地理环境、传统习俗、宗教信仰，神话传说有关，而使学生深感习语语义难以理解，难以记忆，用法难以掌握.认知语义学研究表明,语言的意义与人的认知经验密切相关,习语的意义也是在人类在认知世界的过程中，通过一定的认知机制发展起来的，本文拟从认知语义学的角度出发来揭示英语习语的本质,并运用概念隐喻、转喻与常规知识等主要认知机制分析英语习语的语义.1 传统语义学对习语语义的阐释 传统语义学认为，习语是具有固定的结构，在语义和语法上能独立运用的词组.它的意义一般不能由各组成部分推断出来（王宗炎，1988）.习语是独立于大脑理性思维和人类认知经验之外的抽象符号，它的本质是词汇，是语言系统的一个部分，而不是概念性的. 习语语义具有完整性，我们必须把习语作为一个整体来理解，构成习语的各个词汇失去了它们独立的语义，正如构成单词的每一个字母一般，分开以后毫无意义可言.习语的意义不是构成它的各个单词的意义的相加；如果将其拆分开，尽管可以理解每个单词的意义，但是仍然无法理解这个习语的意义.比如，“I am under the weather ”一句中，un-der the weather 意指“unhappy ”，单从字面意思来理解，毫无无法解释，一个人怎么能“在天气之下”呢？这也正是传统语言学家从习语的语义整体性来研究习语的原因. 习语具有结构的固定性，一般不能用别的词来代替，即使是同义词也不可以，比如，have an axe to grind (另有打算),不能换成“have a hatchet to grind ”.还有，习语中冠词的用法，名词单复数的用法，动词的主动或被动形式等都是固定的，大部分都不能随便进行句法转换.传统语义学认为，习语是一种约定俗成的习惯用法，是一种死喻，对于习语的学习就是死记硬背，模仿和记忆.2认知语义学视角下的习语意义阐释 2.1 习语是概念化的产物 针对传统的客观主义语义学观点，Lakoff &Johnson （1999）提出了基于体验哲学的认知语义观.他们认为人类的知识结构并非符号结构，也不能与客观世界直接对应，人类的知识结构，是概念结构，是人客观世界互动过程中逐渐获得.意义是基于体验的心智现象，是主客观互动的结果.意义需依靠原型范畴，概念化、意象图示来限定的.范畴、概念、推理和心智并不是外部现实客观的、镜像的反映，也不是先天就有的，而是人们在对客观外界感知和体验的基础上认知加工而形成的.完全可以想象，我们的祖先是从认识空间和自身开始认识世界的.人们在经验和行为中形成了范畴和概念，与此同时也就形成了意义（王寅，2007）. 从这个意义上来看，习语也是人类认知和体验的结果.因此，我们可以这样认为，在语言和现实之间存在思维和认知这一中间层次，如果不依赖范畴知识、概念结构和认知方式，就无法接近现实.习语是人类概念体系的产物,不仅仅属于语言本身的问题.习语确实有它的特殊意义,我们应看到这些特殊意义正是来源于人类对客观物质世界的认识,而我们的概念体系正体现了这种认识. 在日常生活中，人们往往参照他们熟知的，有形的，具体的概念来认识、思维、经历、对待无形的、难以定义的概念，形成了一个不同概念之间相互关联的认知方式.以head 一词为例，the head of deparment,head of state,head of government,head of page,head of queue,head of a flower,head of stairs,head of a bed,head of a tape recorder,head of syntactic construction …在head 的所有例子中，所表达的概念都与“头”这一概念紧密联系，表达“the front part of …”或“the vitally important part ”. 比如，在英语中有大量这样以身体词汇概念，产生的习语,play it by ear(随机应变，见机行事),rack your brains （绞尽脑汁想）,turn a blind eye （熟视无睹）,a stiff upper lip （泰然自若，坚定不移）,keep your mouth shut and your eyes open （多看少说）,从这些习语的语义，可以看出人类的认知 英语习语解析———认知语义学视角 李红珍 （孝感学院外国语学院，湖北孝感432000） 摘要：认知语义学为我们提供了探索习语语义的新视角。传统的习语意义观认为习语是不可分析、任意的.认知语义学则认为习语是概念体系的产物,其意义有理据和可分析性.在英语教学中运用认知语义学理论解释和分析英语习语的语义，可以提高学生准确运用习语的能力. 关键词：习语；认知语义学；认知机制中图分类号：G642.3 文献标识码：A 文章编号：1673-260X （2012）03-0250-02 250--
1 学方法、转换生成语言学方法和综合性的方法。指出了语言研究应由“表层结构”向“深层结构”转换, 通过循序渐进的层次对比研究,抓住寓于语言深部的综合特征, 从而准确把握对比中的语言特征, 充分发挥对比语言的对策性。 对比语言学(contrastive linguistics. Contrastive analysis) 在1980 年上海辞书出版社的《语言与语言学辞典》中, 将contrastive analysis 只译作“对比分析”, 许多属于对比语言学范畴的我国学者们的论著, 也大都冠以“比较”二字, 归在比较语言学的领域。也就是说, 对于对比语言学这门学科, 人们还缺乏充分认识。然而就方法论而言, 对比语言学是一门共时语言学（synchronic）, 它只是共时地对两种或两种以上语言进行考查分析, 指出它们之间的语音、语法、词汇等各个部门里的同异点, 并努力运用哲学、心理学、民族学等各学科的知识与理论去说明这些同异点之所以产生的根源。 一、对比语言学的历史演变 虽然对比语言学的研究经历了较长的孕育期, 但真正的研究史只有短短的五十多年。如果要讨论对比语言学的雏形, 我们可以追溯到非常久远的年代。公元初年,佛教开始传入我国; 接着, 我们中华民族光辉灿烂的古代文化传播到日本、朝鲜等国, 形成了举世瞩目的汉字文化圈。在这种吸收消化异族文化与学习吸取异邦文明的过程中, 无疑将首先对其运载工具—— 语言进行研究, 而这种研究也只能是建立在同民族的语言比较对比的基础上。因此, 从这个意义上来说, 我国古代的先哲们译释佛教经典, 五六世纪的日本人“训读”我们的古文的工作都可以认为是对比性的。不过, 事实告诉我们, 这种译释或“训读”远远不是一种建立在严格的语言科学基础上的成体系的工作, 因此, 我们无从把它划入对比语言学的范畴。 而真正的对比语言学诞生于20 世纪50 年代, 它是结构主义语言理论和外国语教育发展的联合产物。19世纪末, 索绪尔树立起语言学史上第一座划时代的丰碑, 他的语言理论影响了包括布龙菲尔德在内的众多的语言学家。
Semantics 1. What is Semantics? Semantics is the study of the meaning of words, phrases and sentences.语义学是研究单词、短语和句子的意义的学科 2．Geoffrey Leech利奇Seven types of meaning7种意义类型: ①Conceptual meaning概念意义 ②Connotative meaning内涵意义 ③Social meaning社会意义 ④Affective meaning 感情意义Associative Meaning联想意义（②——⑥） ⑤Reflected meaning反射意义 ⑥Collocative meaning搭配意义 ⑦Thematic meaning主位意义 3.Conceptual meaning(概念意义)is also called “denotative”（外延义）and it is concerned with the relationship between a word and the thing it refers to.概念意义也叫外延义，它关注词语跟它所指称事物之间的联系 Conceptual meaning is meaning given in the dictionary. 4.Associative meaning (联想意义) is the total of all the meanings a person thinks of when they hear the word Associative meaning is the meaning which a word suggests or implies. 5.Thematic meaning (主位意义) is “what is communicated by the way in which the message is organized in terms of order and emphasis.”它是由词序和词语重音所决定的 6. The Referential Theory（指称理论）： ① The Referential Theory ② The Semantic Triangle ③ Sense and Reference 7.The referential theory指称理论 is the theory of meaning which relates the meaning of a word to the thing it refers to.指称论是把词语意义跟它所指称的事物联系起来的理论 8. The semantic triangle语意三角 is the indirect relation between a word and a thing it refers to and it is mediated by concept.语意三角指词和所指事物之间没有直接关系，它们是以概念为中介的 9.Sense (涵义) is a set of properties possessed by a name. 10.Reference (指称) is the symbolic relationship that a linguistic expression has with the concrete object. 11. The sense of an expression is the thought it expresses, while its reference is the object it represents Every word has a sense, but not every word has a reference. 12. Sense Relations涵义关系 ①Synonymy（同义关系） ②Antonymy（反义关系）（Gradable、Complementary、Converse） ③Hyponymy（上下义关系） 13.But total synonymy is rare. They may differ in style, connotations and dialect.
从词汇语义学角度对比分析《呼啸山庄》的中译 【摘要】滋生于欧美的当代比较语言学，并不一定能成功解决所有语言教学难题，但其重要性却不容忽视。文章从词汇层次，特别是从语义学角度的词义分类和动机方面对《呼啸山庄》的中译进行对比分析。此外，这项研究的局限性可为进一步作这方面的研究起一定的铺垫作用。 【关键词】对比分析《呼啸山庄》语义学动机词义分类 词汇的对比研究包括分析词态学和语义学。本文从后者，即语义学的角度出发，对《呼啸山庄》的中译进行对比分析。语义学是法国语言学家Michel Breal 1984年在美国举行的一 次研讨会上提出来的，六年后英文本《语言学》出版。Breal 在书中首次对语义学的研究从目标和方法角度作出了系统 分析。语义学被确立为一门分支学科后，经历了四个发展阶段，即早期语义学、语源学、结构语义学和多元语义系统研究。与传统语义学不同，现代语义学注重对词汇语义学和句法语义学的研究。本文把重点放在词汇语义学上,这对于从词汇角度对比研究《呼啸山庄》的中译很重要。 许余龙曾对比较语言学这样下定义：比较语言学是一门针对两种（或两种以上）语言进行有系统的共时描述，旨在为与语言相关的活动确定它们之间的相似和相异之处，并找
出这种相似和相异含义的语言学分支。这为一些语言学家所接受，比较语言学也在语言教学过程中开始起到了一定的作用。因此，国内外的语言学家们关注过或一直重视着比较研究这一课题，如赵元任、吕淑湘、刘糜庆、王宗言、许国璋和B.L.Worf,Robert Lado(1957), Catford, Holmes, Hatim。《呼啸山庄》(Wuthering Heights)英文原版是英国文学史上的一位杰出人物艾米莉?q勃朗特的作品，艾米莉?q勃朗特因所写小说的独特而被英国著名小说家和评论家William Somerset Maugham 称为十大杰出人物之一,中国大陆上出现了三种中译版本，其中以杨苡和张玲、张扬两种译本最为流行，本文选这两种译本作为对比研究的对象。 一、文献回顾 1、词义的分类 毋庸置疑，现代语义学的研究目标是词汇意义，而词义是难以定义和分类的。根据现代朗文英语词典，“meaning”(意义)一词指的是：①意思；含义。②重要性；价值；意义。 ③意味深长的。[1]684本文在此采用第一种定义。一般而言，西方语言学界对词义有三种典型的分类。Grice从应用语言的角度把语义分为四种类型：永恒意义、应用永恒意义、场景意义和说话场景意义。而Kitty则在Grice的研究基础上把句
2008-01-06 14:24 许国璋先生在《中国大百科全书》（语言文字卷）对语言作了这样的解释：“语言是人类特有的一种符号系统。当作用于人与人的关系的时候，它就表达相互反映的中介；当作用于人与客观事件的关系的时候，它是认知事物的工具；当作用于文化的时候，它是文化作息的载体。”在这个定义之后，许先生从自己所定义的语言特色、语言的功能、语言的发生、语言的模式等四个方面作了较为详细的论证。传统语言观受到了来自各个方面的挑战。其中一个最为重要的挑战就是语言和思维到底是一种什么样的关系。 语言与思维的关系问题是多种学科，如哲学、心理学、病理学、生物学、人类学和信息科学等都密切关注和长期争论的重大理论问题，当然更是心理语言学或语言心理学的一个重要课题。沈阳说要讨论语言和思维的关系，先要搞清楚两个问题：一是什么是“思维”；二是“语言与思维的关系”是一个什么样的问题。
那么什么是“思维”呢？沈阳在《语言学常识十五讲》中总结说：“狭义的‘思维’可以说就只是‘思考’，即只包括‘想的活动’，但是较广义的‘思维’可以说是包括‘思考’和‘思想’两个方面，即不但指不同程度或不同阶段‘想的活动’，也指不同程度或不同阶段‘想的结果’。”（1） 那么“语言与思维的关系”又是一个什么样的问题呢？这实际上就是要搞清楚人是怎么“想问题”的，或者说是人们在进行“想的活动”和了解“想的结果”的时候，到底主要靠的是什么。其实语言就是思维的工具，思维的各个方面，即“想的活动”和“想的结果”，实际上都离不开语言。人们正是靠了语言才能够知道大家都想了些什么，同时也才能把思维的结果固定起来和传递下去。（2） 不过仅仅说语言是思维的工具，思维离不开语言，这还比较笼统。因为从地位和作用上说，我们还不知道语言和思维是相互作用
Semantics Semantics Semantics is the study of the meaning of linguistic units, words and sentences in particular. Semantics = Theory of Meaning Its goal is to reveal how language are matched with their proper meanings by the speakers of that language. Lexical semantics—the study of word meanings. it deals not only with the meanings of individual words but also the relationship between the meanings of different words. Compositional semantics—is concerned exclusively with the meanings of phrases and sentences. History of Semantics 1893 - French linguist Breal coined ―semantique‖. 1897 – Breal first use it as the science of meaning. 1900 – Its English version came out. 1980s – semantics began to be introduced into China. One of the most famous books on semantics is The Meaning of Meaning(1923). Semantic Triangle 语义三角 Concept（meaning） refers to symbolizes Symbol Thing （word）（referent） stands for The Referential Theory 指称论 Concept (Meaning): the mental image, the abstraction or generalization of objects of the same kind. Referent (Thing): the physical entity or actual object, event, idea or whatever if denoted by a word, phrase or expression. Concept VS. Referent (Thing) A referent may exist in the physical world. The concept is abstracted from the referent and labeled by a word. Sense 语义 Sense is the inherent meaning of the linguistic form independent of situational context. It’s abstract and de-contextualized. Sense Relations Sense relations between words
从语义学角度分析英语中的词汇歧义现象 摘要：歧义是存在于古今中外所有语言中的一种常见的语言学现象，是语言结构形式与其意义之间的一种特殊关系。语言学家认为一个词或一个句子的含义模糊现象，或者存在两种或多种意义解释的现象称之为语言歧义。由于英语的词汇量很大，语法又比较灵活，语言歧义现象在英语中表现得尤为突出。因此本文从语义学角度对英语中的词汇歧义现象进行分类讨论，分析引起歧义的各种因素，具有很重要的理论和现实意义。 一、引言 语义学，也可以称为“语意学”，是涉及计算机科学、自然语言处理、语言学、心理学、逻辑学以及认知科学等诸多领域的学科专用术语，以自然语言涵义为对象，以对语言的结构、性质以及相互间的关系进行分析、研究为主要内容。歧义的“歧”是指“不一致”，“义”指的是意义。语言学家认为：“语言歧义现象是指在语言交流过程中对一个词或一个句子的意思有不同的理解，可以作两种或多种解释”①。歧义在语言运用中是不可避免的，正如美国语言学家Kaplan曾说：“歧义是语言中反常的通病”②。因此，研究语言中的歧义现象，不仅能促进语言学理论的发展，还能有效避免语言歧义在交流中造成的误解和障碍，从而提高语言交际的准确性、严密性。因此，从语义学角度深入探讨歧义现象具有极大研究价值和现实指导意义。
二、词汇歧义现象分析 2.1 多义词歧义 多义词指具有二个或二个以上意义的词。在句子中，多义词的出现往往使句子产生歧义。美国语言学家G.L.Brook曾说：“一词多义是歧义的语言基础”③。把一个多义词用在特定的语境中，通常情况下它不会产生歧义。但是，如果一个多义词的几种意义在同一个句子中都能成立，那么，此句就有了歧义。例如“Are you engaged？”一句既可以理解成“你忙吗？”又可以理解成“你定婚了吗？”。 2.2 同形异义词歧义 同形异义词是指那些拼写相同而意义不同的词。同形异义词并不是同一个词，它不同于多义词，而是有着不同词源的两个或两个以上形式相同，但是意义不同的一种语言现象。同形异义词又可以分为：同音异义词、同形同音异义词及同形异义词三种形式。例如：Im More satisfied.Ask for more.这是摩尔牌香烟广告，该商标的同音同形异义词是英语中一个常用的与数量有关的形容词。 为什么我们能同时处理多个意义而不产生混乱呢？认知语义学中的家族相似性理论能够说明其原因，“家族成员中具有某种相似特征：体态、相貌、眼睛的颜色、步态和气质都有一些相似和重叠地方”④。人们凭直觉既可准确判断某人属于某一家族，又可识别其家族成员之间的细微差别。世界是由无限种类
对比语言学的定义、起源与发展 对比语言学(Contrastive Linguistics的定义 1、语言学中的比较与对比 比较是人类认识事物、研究事物的一种基本方法，也是语言学研究的一种基本方法。如果说，语言学的根本任务是对语言的某种现象加以阐述的话，那么要对某一语言现象作出阐述，总是需要对这一现象的种种表现加以比较和分析(Harlmann1980:22。因而，按其本质来说，对比语言学也是一种比较,不过是一种具有特定含义的语言学中的比较。下面，先让我们来看看对比语言学的比较，与语言学中其他分支的比较有什么不同，从而使我们能够确定对比语言学在整个语言学中的位置，及其与其他语言学研究的联系。 在进行语言学比较时，根据比较对象的不同，可以沿两条轴线来进行。一方面，可以选择共时或历时的语言现象来进行比较;另一方面，可以选择在某一语言内部或各种语言之间的语言现象来进行比较。这两条轴线的互相交叉，便形成了如下四个象限，这四个象限将语言学研究分成四大类性质和目的不同的比较。
象限I代表了同一语言内部的共时比较。这类比较是对某一语言在其历史发展的某一阶段(特别是现时阶段的语音、语法和词汇等系统的内部构成成分及组织结构的比较。 在共时语言学研究中，要对某一语言的某一结构系统进行描述，就必须对这一结构系统里的各种语言现象加以比较分析。例如，如果我们要研究一种语言的语音系统，我们就要比较这个系统里的各个音素的发音部位和方法有什么不同，它们的声学物理属性有什么不同，在音节中的分布又有什么不同的规律，我们就必须比较这个语言中各类词的语法作用有什么不同，组合搭配有什么特点，等等。而且，要确定一个语言中的词可以区分为哪几个词类，这本身就要进行大量的形态、语义、语法特征等方面的比较。因此可以说，同一语言内的共时比较是语音学、语法学、词汇学等构成当代语言学主流的各个分支学科的一种主要研究方法。 象限Ⅱ代表了同一语言内部的历时比较。这类比较是对某一语言在其历史演变的不同阶段的语音、语法和词汇等系统加以比较，从而使我们了解这一语言的发展历史，找出其基本发展演变规律。例如，通过对英语的历时比较，语言学家一般认为，英语的演变经历了古英语、中古英语、早期现代英语和现代英语等四个阶段。其语法演变的总趋势表现为从一个综合型的语言逐步向一个分析型的语言发展，即词的屈折变化逐渐减少，语法意义的表达越来越多地依赖语序以及介词等语法作用词的运用。这类比较是对某一语言的语言史及其分科(如词源学、古今比较语法学等研究的主要方法。 象限Ⅲ代表了不同语言之间的历时比较。这类比较是对不同语言(一般是亲属语言在各个历史发展阶段的语音、语法和词汇等系统进行比较，其目的主要是探讨语言之间的历史联系，并据此对世界上的语言进行谱系分类，重建或构拟某一组亲属语的共同原始语(proto-language，找出它们之间的某些共同发展规律. 例如，语言学家通过对印欧语系诸语言之向的历时比较研究，使我们能够大致了解这些语言在历史演变过程中的关系，推断出原始印欧语的大致形式。不同语言之间的历时比较往往
汉语国际教育硕士必读书目及相关论文 对外汉语教学基础理论 书目： 赵金铭主编《对外汉语教学概论》，商务印书馆，2004 周小兵等主编《对外汉语教学入门》，中山大学出版社，2004 刘询《对外汉语教育学引论》，北京语言文化大学出版社，2000 刘询主编《对外汉语教学概论》，北京语言文化大学出版社，1997 吕必松《华语教学讲习》，北京语言学院出版社，1992 吕必松《对外汉语教学研究》，北京语言学院出版社，1993 吕必松《对外汉语教学概论（讲义）》，1996 盛炎《语言教学原理》，重庆出版社，1990 李泉主编《对外汉语教学理论》，商务印书馆，2006 程棠《对外汉语教学目的原则方法》，华语教学出版社，2000 徐子亮、吴仁甫《实用对外汉语教学法》，北京大学出版社，2006 鲁健骥《对外汉语教学思考集》，北京语言文化大学出版社，1999 李扬《中高级对外汉语教学论》，北京大学出版社，1993 李扬《对外汉语本科教育研究》，北京语言文化大学出版社，1999 国家汉办汉语水平考试部《汉语水平词汇与汉字等级大纲》，北京语言学院出版社，1992 国家汉办《高等学校外国留学生汉语言专业教学大纲》，北京语言文化大学出版社，2001 国家汉办《高等学校外国留学生汉语教学大纲（长期进修）》，北京语言文化大学出版社，2001 国家汉办《高等学校外国留学生汉语教学大纲（短期强化）》，北京语言文化大学出版社，2001 论文： 钟梫执笔《15年汉语教学总结》，《语言教学与研究》（试刊）1979年第4集 吕必松《谈谈对外汉语教学的性质和特点》，《语言教学与研究》1983年第3期 吕必松《关于教学内容与教学方法问题的思考》，《语言教学与研究》1990年第2期 吕必松《再论对外汉语教学的性质和特点》，《语言教学与研究》1991年第2期 吕必松《对外汉语教学的理论研究问题刍议》，《语言文字应用》1992年第1期 崔永华《对外汉语教学学科概说》，《中国文化研究》1997年第1期 陆俭明《关于开展对外汉语教学研究之管见》，《语言文字应用》1999年第4期 赵金铭《近十年对外汉语教学研究述评》，《语言教学与研究》1989年第1期 盛炎《对外汉语教学理论研究中几个热门问题的思考》，载《中国对外汉语教学学会第三次学术讨论会论文选》，北京语言学院出版社，1990 中国对外汉语教学学会等《对外汉语教学的定性、定位、定量问题座谈会纪要》，《语言教学与研究》1995年第1期 赵金铭《对外汉语教学与研究的现状与前瞻》，《中国语文》1996年第6期 刑福义《关于对外汉语教学的学科建设》，转引自张德鑫《对外汉语教学五十年》，《语言文字应用》1996年第1期 刑福义《关于对外汉语教学》，载张德鑫主编《对外汉语教学：回眸与思考》，外语教学与研究出版社，2000
5. Semantics 5.1 What is semantics? Semantics can be simply defined as the study of meaning. This definition naturally leads to the question: what is meaning? Meaning is central to the study of communication, but the question of what meaning really is is difficult to answer. Even linguists do not agree among themselves as to what meaning is. And what makes the matter even more complicated is th at philosophers, psychologists, and sociologists all claim a deep interest in the study of meaning, although they differ in their focus of interest. The philosophers are interested in understanding the relations between linguistic expressions and what they refer to in the real world, and in evaluating the truth value of linguistic expressions. The psychologists focus their interest on understanding the workings of the human mind through language. This is why it is not surprising to find ten books all bearing the title "Semantics" but talking about different things. In our discussion, we will limit ourselves to the study of meaning from a linguistic point of view. 5.2 Some views concerning the study of meaning 5.2.1 The naming theory One of the oldest notions concerning meaning, and also the most primitive one, was the naming theory proposed by the ancient Greek scholar Plato. According to this theory, the linguistic forms or symbols, in other words, the words used in a language are simply labels of the objects they stand for. So words are just names or labels for things. The limitations of this theory are obvious. First of all, this theory seems applicable to nouns only, but verbs, adjectives, and adverbs such as "think", "hard", "slowly" are definitely not labels of objects. Besides, within the category of nouns, there are nouns which denote things that do not exist in the real world at all such as "ghost", "dragon", and "unicorn", and also nouns that do not refer to physical objects, but abstract notions such as "j o y", "im pulse ". 5.2.2 The conceptualist view A more sophisticated and seemingly more plausible view than naming is one that relates words and things through the mediation of concepts of the mind. This conceptualist view has been held by some philosophers and linguists from ancient times. This view holds that there is no direct link between a linguistic form and what it refers to (i.e. , between language and the real world); rather, in the interpretation of meaning they are linked through the mediation of concepts in the mind. This is best illustrated by the classic semantic triangle or triangle of significance suggested by Ogden and Richards: THOUGHT/REFERENCE SYMBOL/FORM-REFERENT (直线表示两者之间有直接联系，虚线表示两者之间无直接联系。) In the diagram, the SYMBOL or FORM refers to the linguistic elements (words,