Towards a Dynamic Lexicon: Predicting the Syntactic Argument Structure of Complex Verbs
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چکیده
The presentation summarizes the results of a recent (2002) corpus-based study on the syntactic argument structure of German separable verbs, in particular the question of its predictability from the argument structure of their bases. The study shows that the argument structure effects of verb formation with separable preverbs are astonishingly regular, even if the meaning of the resulting complex verb itself is opaque. Alternation patterns can be formulated for single preverbs or, in some cases, preverb classes as well. The results can be used in various ways in NLP and linguistic resource building: An implementation, e.g. in the form of LFG-style lexical rules, within a parser for German text will allow sensible guesses at argument structure frames for newly encountered complex verbs, even if the argument structure of the base verb is not known. Similarly, the patterns can be used for the acquisition of argument structure information for a (static) NLP lexicon. When integrated with a static dictionary, the patterns thus allow to deal with the productive formation of complex verbs and its impact on syntactic argument structure. Preverbs and prefixes In German, new verbs can be productively created from other verbs by means of prefixation. There are two kinds of verbal ‘prefixes’: separable ‘prefixes’, which we will call preverbs, and inseparable prefixes. Preverbs (2) differ in their behaviour from ‘real’ (inseparable) prefixes (1): They bear the main accent of the complex verb (2a in contrast to 1a, where the main accent remains on the verbal base), and they are separated from the verbal base in verb-second and verb-first clauses, where the base moves from clause-final position to the front, leaving the preverb behind (2b): (1) a. ... dass sie ihren Vater besucht. [b@'zu:xt] ... that she her father be-seeks “that she goes to see her father” b. Sie besucht ihren Vater. she be-seeks her father “She goes to see her father” (2) a. ... dass sie ihren Anwalt aufsucht. ['awfzu:xt] ... that she her lawyer on-seeks “that she goes to see her lawyer” b. Sie sucht ihren Anwalt auf. she seeks her lawyer on “She goes to see her lawyer” Roughly speaking, the preverbs can be divided into two main classes: closed-class preverbs derived from prepositions (e.g. auf“on, up”, durch“through”) and adverbs (hinein“into”, zurück“back”): jdn. auf#suchen “to seek on s.b.”, i.e. “to go to see s.b.”, etw. auf#schneiden “to cut s.th. up”, (durch etw.) durch#kommen “to come through s.th.”, etw. durch#lesen “to read through s.th.”; etw. zurück#fordern “to demand s.th. back”, etw. zurück#stellen “to put / set s.th. back”. A subset of these preverbs forms what is traditionally called the set of ‘(verbal) particles’; their complex verbs are called ‘particle verbs’. These are e.g. the preverbs auf-, aus(“out”), ein(“in”), los(“start to” – e.g. los#lachen “to start laughing” – note that this is only one of several readings of los#). open-class preverbs, i.e. deadjectival (frei“free”), denominal (berg“mountain”) and deverbal (stehen“stand”) ones: etw. frei#schaufeln “to shovel s.th. free”, frei#stehen “to stand free, unprotected”; berg#steigen “to mountain-climb”, i.e. “to climb mountains”; stehen#bleiben “to remain standing”. Deadjectival prefixes are frequently used to form resultative predicates, e.g. etw. kochen (“to cook s.th.”) – etw. weich#kochen (“to cook s.th. soft”). New preverbs can be added to the second class by taking almost any noun, adjective or verb as basis – naturally, it is not possible to form new closed-class preverbs. In contrast, a typical denominal or deverbal preverb occurs with one or two base verbs only, whereas the ‘verbal particles’ of the first class abound in German and combine productively with (in many cases) hundreds of different verbs. To summarize, we observe productivity in both classes, but productivity of different kinds. In both cases it is of linguistical interest to capture syntactic and/or semantic regularities accompanying the formation of new complex verbs. Historically, ‘particle verbs’ were probably formed out of adverb-verb contractions, which then underwent further semantic change. In consequence, the meaning of some complex verbs can (still) be compositionally derived from the semantic contents of preverb and base verb today (like
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تاریخ انتشار 2004