7 - Semantic features in a generic lexicon

Summary

Introduction

Some approaches to semantics

Various theories are nowadays used in linguistic analysis, particularly in syntax, and it does not seem reasonable to expect a reduction of their number in the near future. Nor does it seem reasonable to expect that one theory will cover them, as a kind of meta-theory. Nevertheless, all these theories have in common the need for a lexicon which would include the necessary and sufficient information for combining lexical items and extracting a representation of the meaning of such combinations.

If it is not possible to propose a canonical theory to organize the storage of the lexical information, it is necessary to adopt a “polytheoretic” conception of the lexicon. (Hellwig, Minkwitz, and Koch, 1991). A point shared by different theories concerns the need for some semantic information even for a syntactic parsing of a sentence (and a fortiori, beyond this level, for the parsing of a text).

During a first period, the semantic information required was above all concentrated on the thematic roles (Gruber, 1965; Jackendoff, 1972). These thematic roles were introduced because the grammatical functions were insufficient for discriminating between various interpretations and for describing the similarities of sentences. For instance, in:

1. The door opened

2. Charlie opened the door

the door is considered as having the same semantic function but not the same grammatical function – subject for (1) and object for (2). Gruber (1965) gives to the door in the two sentences the same thematic role of theme. A similar objective was assigned to the case-theory (Fillmore, 1968).