Skip to main content Accessibility help

We use cookies to distinguish you from other users and to provide you with a better experience on our websites. Close this message to accept cookies or find out how to manage your cookie settings.

Close cookie message
×
Hostname: page-component-cd9895bd7-lnqnp Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-12-19T23:41:08.005Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false

1 - Formal Semantics and the Problem of Nominalizations

from Part I - Lexico-Semantic Aspects of Complex Words

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  18 September 2020

By
Rochelle Lieber
Edited by
Lívia Körtvélyessy  and
Pavol Štekauer
Lívia Körtvélyessy
Affiliation:
P. J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia
Pavol Štekauer
Affiliation:
P. J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia
Get access

Summary

This paper discusses the ways in which formal or model theoretic semantics has difficulty addressing questions of lexical semantics, specifically questions that arise in accounting for the pervasive polysemy of deverbal nominalizations like German Bemalung (painting) and English blending. Formal or model theoretic semantics has largely neglected issues in which analysis of complex words comes to the fore. I briefly review the history of model theoretic semantics and its relation to lexical semantics and illustrate the tendency for conceptual semantics to be quietly integrated into referential semantics, as, for example, in a recent article by Pross (2019). I conclude with a brief sketch of how Lieber’s (2004, 2016) Lexical Semantic Framework treats the polysemy of deverbal nominalizations.

Keywords

nominalizationspolysemymodel theoretic semanticsconceptual semanticsLexical Semantic Framework
Type
Chapter
Information
Complex Words
Advances in Morphology
 , pp. 19 - 35
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2020

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Andreou, M. and Lieber, R. (2019). Aspectual and quantificational properties of deverbal conversion and -ing nouns. English Language and Linguistics. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674319000108Google Scholar
Asher, N. (2011). Lexical Meaning in Context. A Web of Words, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Barwise, J. and Perry, J. (1983). Situations and Attitudes, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Borer, H. (2005a). In Name Only, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Borer, H. (2005b). In the Normal Course of Events, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Borer, H. (2013). Taking Form, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Brandom, R. (1994). Making It Explicit, Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.Google Scholar
Carnap, R. (1965). Meaning and Necessity, Chicago: Chicago University Press.Google Scholar
Dowty, D. (1979). Word Meaning and Montague Grammar: The Semantics of Verbs and Times in Generative Semantics and Montague's PTQ, Dordrecht: Reidel.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fox, C. and Lappin, S. (2005). Foundations of Intensional Semantics, Oxford: Blackwell.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Frege, G. (1892). Uber Sinn und Bedeutung. In Zeitschrift für Philosophie und philosophische Kritik. Translation in Geach, P. and Black, M. (1960). Translations from the Philosophical Writings of Gottlob Frege, Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Grimshaw, J. (1990). Argument Structure, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Groenendijk, J. and Stokhof, M. (1991). Dynamic predicate logic. Linguistics and Philosophy, 14, 39–100.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Heim, I. and Kratzer, A. (1998). Semantics in Generative Grammar, Malden, MA: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1972). Semantic Interpretation in Generative Grammar, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Jackendoff, R. (1990). Semantic Structures, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Kamp, H. and Reyle, U. (2011). Discourse representation theory. In Maienborn, C., von Heusinger, K. and Portner, P., eds., Semantics (HSK 33.1), Berlin: de Gruyter, pp. 872–923.Google Scholar
Kamp, H., van Genabith, J. and Reyle, U. (2011). Discourse Representation Theory. In Gabbay, D. and Guenthner, F., eds., Handbook of Philosophical Logic, Vol. 15, 2nd ed. Dordrecht: Springer, pp. 25–394.Google Scholar
Katz, J. and Postal, P. (1964). An Integrated Theory of Linguistic Descriptions, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Katz, J. (1996). Semantics in linguistics and philosophy: an intensionalist perspective. In Lappin, S., ed., The Handbook of Contemporary Semantic Theory, Oxford: Blackwell, pp. 599–616.Google Scholar
Lewis, D. (1970). General Semantics. Synthese, 22, 18–67.Google Scholar
Levinson, L. (2014). The ontology of roots and verbs. In Alexiadou, A., Borer, H. and Schaefer, F., eds., The Syntax of Roots and the Roots of Syntax, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 208–229.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lieber, R. (2004). Morphology and Lexical Semantics, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lieber, R. (2016). English Nouns. The Ecology of Nominalization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Lieber, R. and Andreou, M. (2018). Aspect and modality in -er nominals. Morphology, 28(2), 187–217. http://doi.org/10.1007/s11525–018-9321-7/Google Scholar
Portner, P. (2005). What is Meaning?, Malden, MA & Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar
Pross, T. (2019). What about lexical semantics if syntax is the only generative component of the grammar? Natural Language and Linguistic Theory, 37(1), 215–261.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pustejovsky, J. (1995). The Generative Lexicon, Cambridge, MA: MIT Press.Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, J. (2006). Type theory and lexical decomposition. Journal of Cognitive Science, 6, 39–76.Google Scholar
Pustejovsky, J. (2011). Coercion in a general theory of argument selection. Linguistics, 49(6), 1401–1437.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pylkkänen, L. and McElree, B. (2006). The syntax-semantics interface: on-line composition of sentence meaning. In Traxler, M. and Gernsbacher, M. A., eds., Handbook of Psycholinguistics, New York: Elsevier, pp. 539–579.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rossdeutscher, A. and Kamp, H. (2010). Syntactic and semantic constraints on the formation and interpretation of -ung-nouns. In Rathert, M. and Alexiadou, A., eds., The Semantics of Nominalizations Across Languages and Frameworks, Berlin: DeGruyter, pp. 169–214.Google Scholar

Save book to Kindle

To save this book to your Kindle, first ensure [email protected] is added to your Approved Personal Document E-mail List under your Personal Document Settings on the Manage Your Content and Devices page of your Amazon account. Then enter the ‘name’ part of your Kindle email address below. Find out more about saving to your Kindle.

Note you can select to save to either the @free.kindle.com or @kindle.com variations. ‘@free.kindle.com’ emails are free but can only be saved to your device when it is connected to wi-fi. ‘@kindle.com’ emails can be delivered even when you are not connected to wi-fi, but note that service fees apply.

Find out more about the Kindle Personal Document Service.

Available formats
×

Save book to Dropbox

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Dropbox.

Available formats
×

Save book to Google Drive

To save content items to your account, please confirm that you agree to abide by our usage policies. If this is the first time you use this feature, you will be asked to authorise Cambridge Core to connect with your account. Find out more about saving content to Google Drive.

Available formats
×