Frames in Formal Semantics

In his classic paper on frame semantics, Charles Fillmore says that it comes from traditions of empirical semantics rather than formal semantics. In this paper we will try to draw a closer connection between empirical and formal semantics and suggest that a notion of frame closely related to that found in FrameNet can be usefully exploited in formal semantics based on a particular type theory with records (TTR). We will first show how frames of this kind can be used to give a compositional semantics for verbs relating to Reichenbach’s analysis of tense using speech, reference and event time. We will then revisit an old puzzle from Montague semantics relating to temperature and price. We will relate our solution to this puzzle to Fernando’s string theory of events. Finally, we will consider some consequences of our analysis for the way in which agents acquire and modify word meaning as a result of exposure to linguistic input.