Frame-Constructional Verb Classes
Change and Theft verbs in English and German
1st Edition
Published on 24. November 2020
330 pages
978-90-272-6101-4 (ISBN)
Description
While verb classes are a mainstay of linguistic research, the field lacks consensus on precisely what constitutes a verb class. This book presents a novel approach to verb classes, employing a bottom-up, corpus-based methodology and combining key insights from Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar, and Valency Grammar. On this approach, verb classes are formulated at varying granularity levels to adequately capture both the shared semantic and syntactic properties unifying verbs of a class and the idiosyncratic properties unique to individual verbs. In-depth analyses based on this approach shed light on the interrelations between verbs, frame-semantics, and constructions, and on the semantic richness and network organization of grammatical constructions.This approach is extended to a comparison of Change and Theft verbs, revealing unexpected lexical and syntactic differences across semantically distinct classes. Finally, a range of contrastive (German-English) analyses demonstrate how verb classes can inform the cross-linguistic comparison of verbs and constructions.
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Content
- Intro
- Frame-Constructional Verb Classes
- Editorial page
- Title page
- Copyright page
- Table of contents
- Acknowledgments
- 1. Introduction
- 1.1 Introduction
- 1.1.1 Overview and purpose
- 1.1.2 The intuitive basis of verb classes
- 1.2 Verb class research
- 1.2.1 Various approaches to verb classes
- 1.2.2 Insights from cognitive and usage-based linguistics
- 1.2.3 Verb classes across domains and languages
- 1.3 Overview and structure of the monograph
- 1.3.1 Theoretical background
- 1.3.2 A novel approach to verb classes
- 1.3.3 Comparative aspects of verb classes
- 1.3.4 Data, scope, limitations
- 2. Approaches to verb classification
- 2.1 Lexical semantics, syntax-semantics interface, and verb classes: An overview
- 2.1.1 Lexical semantics
- 2.1.2 Goals and challenges of verb classification and syntax-semantics interface research
- 2.2 Role-based approaches to argument realization
- 2.3 Event-structural approaches to argument realization and verb classes
- 2.3.1 The relation between event structure, verb meaning, and argument realization
- 2.3.2 Problems with event-structural approaches
- 2.4 Levin's (1993) alternation-based classification of English verbs
- 2.4.1 Overview
- 2.4.2 Change verbs in Levin (1993)
- 2.4.3 Evaluation of Levin (1993)
- 2.4.4 The status of argument structure alternations
- 2.4.5 Summary
- 2.5 Summary and conclusion
- 3. Frame Semantics, Construction Grammar, and Valency Grammar
- 3.1 Frame Semantics
- 3.1.1 Background and introduction to Frame Semantics
- 3.1.2 FrameNet classes, Frame Elements, Lexical Units, and the FrameNet hierarchy
- 3.1.2.1 Frames and Lexical Units
- 3.1.2.2 Frame Elements and Frame Element relations
- 3.1.2.3 Valency data in FrameNet
- 3.1.2.4 Frame-to-frame relations and the Frame Grapher
- 3.1.3 Comparing Frame Semantics to other approaches to the syntax-semantics interface
- 3.1.3.1 Frame Semantics and semantic roles
- 3.1.3.2 Frame Semantics and aspectual approaches
- 3.1.3.3 Frame Semantics and Levin (1993)
- 3.1.3.4 FrameNet and WordNet
- 3.1.4 Problems with Frame Semantics
- 3.1.5 Summary
- 3.2 Construction Grammar
- 3.2.1 Construction Grammar: An introduction
- 3.2.2 Principles of CxG
- 3.2.2.1 Definition of "construction" and formalization
- 3.2.2.2 Construction Grammar, Usage-based Theory, and Corpus Linguistics
- 3.2.2.3 Constructional inheritance networks
- 3.2.3 Constructional approaches to argument realization
- 3.2.3.1 Goldberg (1995, 2006): Argument Structure Constructions
- 3.2.3.2 Questions about the combination of verbs and constructions
- 3.2.3.3 Constructional and projectionist approaches to argument structure
- 3.2.3.4 Frame Semantics and Construction Grammar
- 3.2.4 Change verbs in CxG
- 3.2.5 Summary of CxG
- 3.3 Valency Grammar
- 3.3.1 Introduction and the VDE
- 3.3.2 Faulhaber (2011) and the idiosyncratic nature of verb valency
- 3.3.3 Valency constructions and argument structure constructions
- 3.4 Conclusion
- 4. English Change verbs
- 4.1 Introduction
- 4.2 Semantics of English Change Verbs
- 4.2.1 Method
- 4.2.2 Meaning components of English Change verbs
- General verbs: Change, turn
- Verbs with 'additional MCs:': Alter, modify, transform
- 4.2.3 Summary of English Change verb meanings
- 4.3 Valency of English Change verbs
- 4.3.1 Data, methodology, and terminology
- 4.3.2 English Change VCs: Overview
- 4.3.3 Results of corpus analysis
- Alter
- Change
- Transform
- Turn
- Modify
- 4.3.4 Summary of corpus valency analysis
- 4.3.4.1 General summary of valency behavior tendencies
- 4.3.4.2 Implications of valency analysis
- 4.4 The English Change frame-constructional verb class
- 4.4.1 Approach
- 4.4.2 The semantics of the English Change FCVC
- Shared meaning
- Peripheral FEs
- Additional meaning components
- Relation to other FCVCs: General meaning of the Change FCVC
- Relation to other FCVCs: Change FCVC vs. "change-of-state" verbs/FCVCs
- Relation to other FCVCs: Change-of-state interpretations for Change verbs in specific contexts
- 4.4.3 The syntax of the English Change FCVC
- 4.4.3.1 "Constructional range" of the English Change FCVC
- 4.4.3.2 Network structure of the (Change) constructional range
- 4.4.3.3 The meanings of valency constructions and the constructional range
- 4.4.3.4 Verb meanings and their distribution across the constructional range
- 4.4.3.5 Phrase-Types, allostructions, and the general semantics of change verbs
- 4.4.3.6 Summary
- 4.5 Multi-grained verb entries and (syntactic-semantic) subclasses
- 4.5.1 Contents of multi-grained verb entries
- 4.5.2 MGVEs for English Change verbs
- 4.5.3 Implications of the MGVE approach
- 4.5.4 Syntactic-semantic subclasses and refining MGVEs
- 4.6 Testing the FCVC approach and a "Drastic Change" subclass
- 4.6.1 Can FCVCs predict argument realization?
- 4.6.2 Meaning and valency behavior of 'metamorphose'
- 4.6.4 A "Drastic Change" subclass?
- 4.7 Conclusion
- 5. Comparing Theft verbs to Change verbs
- 5.1 Introduction
- 5.1.1 Overview
- 5.1.2 Theft verbs in Levin (1993) and FrameNet
- 5.1.3 Verb descriptivity of Change and Theft verbs
- 5.1.4 Outline of chapter
- 5.2 Comparing the meanings of English Theft and Change Verbs
- 5.2.1 The meanings of English Theft verbs
- 5.2.2 Comparison of English Theft and Change meanings
- 5.2.3 Verb descriptivity, frequency, and concreteness
- 5.3 Comparing English Theft and Change valency constructions and their features
- 5.3.1 Valency constructions of English Theft verbs
- 5.3.2 Comparing English Theft and Change VCs and issues in delimiting VCs
- Delimiting VCs
- 5.3.3 Frame-sensitive syntactic features
- 5.4 Variation among Theft verbs and the need for multi-grained verb entries
- 5.5 Conclusion
- 6. A contrastive perspective: German Change and Theft Verbs
- 6.1 Background and outline of the contrastive change verb analysis
- 6.1.1 Previous contrastive research on verb meaning
- 6.1.2 Previous contrastive research on verb valency and constructions
- 6.1.3 Overview of contrastive Change verb analyses
- 6.2 Change verbs in German and English
- 6.2.1 Meanings of German Change verbs
- 6.2.2 Valency constructions of German Change verbs
- 6.2.3 Comparing German and English Change valency constructions
- 6.2.4 Valency behavior of German Change verbs
- Ändern
- Abändern
- Verändern
- Verwandeln
- Wandeln
- Summary and comparison of German Change verbs' valency behavior
- 6.2.5 Grammatically relevant meaning components of Change verbs in German and English
- 6.2.6 Conclusion of contrastive change verb analysis
- 6.3 Theft verbs in German and English: Verb descriptivity in contrastive analysis
- 6.3.1 Introduction and review of contrastive research on Theft verbs
- 6.3.2 Theft verb meanings in German and English
- 6.3.2.1 Meanings of German Theft verbs
- 6.3.2.2 Theft verbs vs. Change verbs: A comparison of cross-linguistic semantic similarity
- 6.3.3 Comparing the contrastive analyses of Theft and Change valency constructions
- 6.3.3.1 German Theft VCs vs. German Change VCs
- 6.3.3.2 Are Theft VCs more diverse across languages than Change VCs?
- 6.4 Summary and conclusion
- 7. Conclusion
- 7.1 Summary
- 7.2 Conclusions and implications
- 7.3 Limitations and outlook
- Bibliography
- Author Index
- Verb Class Index
- Subject Index
