Lexical Semantics. An Introduction

1. Lexical Semantics. An Introduction Boris Iomdin Russian Language Institute,Russian Academy of Sciences iomdin@ruslang.ru

2. Lecture 12. Plan • Classifications of the lexicon • Objects • Predicates • Fundamental classification • Main classes • Subclasses • Semantic annotation of corpora • A case study: memory in Russian

3. Classifying the lexicon • Objects • names of animals, birds, fish, fruits, vegetables, stones, mountains, stars, planets, etc. • differential explications • a taxonomical classification • Predicates • lexical units that have at least one semantic valency • exhaustive explications • a fundamental classification

4. Generic and specific features Both parts of the inventory are further subdivided into two subgroups: • generic semantic features (genus proximum). Nouns: ‘animal’, ‘vegetable’, ‘state’, ‘action’, … • specific semantic features (differentia specifica). Adjectives: ‘domestic’, ‘wild’, ‘natural’, ‘physical’, ‘mental’, …

5. Fundamental classification • Developed by Juri Apresjan and differs from comparable systems of J. Maslov, Z. Vendler, T. Bulygina, E. Paducheva, Ch. Fillmore and others • A non-rigid multi-level hierarchy with multiple "horizontal" and "vertical" intersections of classes • Unlike that of object descriptors, the list of predicate descriptors forms a closed set • The classes of the fundamental classification can be used in all sorts of rules: morphological, derivational, syntactic, semantic, pragmatic, …

6. Main classes • Action • Activity • Occupation • Behaviour • Impact • Process • Manifestation • Event • Spatial position • Localization • State • Property • Ability • Parameter • Existence • Relation • Interpretation

7. Action • An action is a verb whose explication, if reduced to the lowest level, includes the semantic primitive ‘to do’, and the situation takes place within one round of observation • Examples: attack, walk, go, chop • The main and the most numerous class • Most actants • Richest co-occurrence • Highest derivational potential • Most polysemous

8. Activity • An activity is a verb that denotes an aggregate of different actions united by a single purpose, and the situation takes place within several rounds of observation • Examples: educate, trade, fight (for power)

9. Behaviour • A behaviour is a verb that denotes an aggregate of physical actions viewed from the angle of how the subject shows himself towards other people or towards the current situation, with a (generally negative) assessment • Examples: frolic, mince, fool around, brawl

10. Occupation • An occupation is a verb that denotes an action the main purpose of which is the action itself • Examples: read, play, rest, skate • Action and occupation are close enough, the main difference being the interpretation of the purpose Occupation: • xodit’ po gorodu ‘to be walking in the city’, plavat’ v bassejne ‘to be swimming in the pool’ Action: • xodit’ kupat’sja ‘to go for a swim’, plavat’ za kuvshinkami ‘to swim for water lilies’

11. Impact • An impact is a verb whose subject is not a human being but an inanimate power that can change the world (a space object, a natural phenomenon, a certain circumstance, etc.) • This power could be the cause of • an action (A rustle in the bushes made him stop) • a process (The sun heats the air) • a situation (This declaration harms us) • a state (Meeting with de Saussure worried him)

12. Process • A process is a verb whosesubject is an object or a phenomenon which could change all by itself, without anyone wishing it • Examples: grow, decrease, boil, recover • Actions and processes are close enough, the main difference being the existence / absence of a purpose

13. Spatial position • A spatial position is a verb whose main idea is a constant contact of an object X (or its part Z) and a place Y • Examples: be sitting, be lying, be standing

14. Manifestation • A manifestation is a property, a state or a process that is being perceived by an observer • Examples: shine, ring, stink, sting

15. Subclasses • Inceptives • arise:‘beginning’ + ‘existence’ • learn: ‘beginning’ + ‘state’ • Finitives • die out: ‘ceasing’ + ‘existence’ • forget: ‘ceasing’ + ‘state’ • Causatives • feed: ‘causation’ + ‘action’ • cultivate: ‘causation’ + ‘process’ • Liquidatives • awaken: ‘elimination’ + ‘process’

16. Subclasses of actions • Physical: break • Physiological: urinate • Mental: think • Volitional: decide • Emotional: anger • Speech: request • Social: marry • …

17. Subclasses of impacts • Physical: heat • Mental: convince • Volitional: force • Emotional: surprise • …

18. Subclasses of states • Physical: see • Physiological: be ill • Mental: know • Volitional: wish • Emotional: fear • Material: need • Social: be married • … (no speech states!)

19. Subclasses of parameters • Numerical: height, length, distance, width, depth, area, capacity, volume, age, time, weight, … • Qualitative: appearance, form, colour, sound, smell, … • Social, non-hierarchical: nationality, religion, occupation, income, … • Social, hierarchical: rank, title, status, course, …

20. Polysemy: different lexemes may go into different classes • vxodit’ v komnatu ‘to enter a room’: action • vxodit’ v trans ‘to fall into a trance’: process • vxodit’ v komissiju ‘to be part of a committee’: state • vxodit’ v vedro ‘to go in a bucket’: parameter (capacity) • sobaka viljaet xvostom ‘the dog wiggles its tail’: action • pricep viljaet ‘the trailer side-tracks’: process • doroga viljaet ‘the road twists’: property

21. Order of meanings • Direct meanings • Metaphorical/metonymical meanings • Lexically or syntactically bound meanings • Grammatical meanings Gradual semantic erosion of verbal lexemes

22. Semantic tagging of corpora • Semantic tagging is based on the inventory of semantic features (descriptors) and a dictionary, with a set of tags assigned to each lexeme and its argument slots • The set of descriptors assigned to words is designed in such a way as to construct a linguistically relevant classification for the whole vocabulary • This classification serves for discovering laws according to which the elements of various lexical and semantic classes interact in the texts • A part of the Russian National Corpus has been syntactically and semantically tagged by Apresjan et al. Cf. Proposition Bank from the Penn English Tree Bank etc.

23. Russian memory lexicon • Mental state: pomnit’ ‘remember’, … • Inceptives: • Controlled: vspomnit’, pripomnit’ ‘recall’, … • Uncontrolled: vspomnit’sja‘come to memory’, … • Liquidatives: • Controlled: vybrosit’ izgolovy‘think away’, … • Uncontrolled: zabyt’ ‘forget’, upustit’ ‘miss’, … • Causation: • Internal: zapomnit’ ‘memorize’, vyuchit’ ‘learn’, … • External: napomnit’ ‘remind’, suvenir‘souvenir’, … • Abilities: pamjatlivyj‘having a good memory’, … • Result: vospominanie ‘reminiscence’, … • Properties of objects: pamjatnyj‘memorable’, … • Responsible organ(s): pamjat’ ‘memory’, soznanie ‘mind’

24. Memory and other mental domains: main differences • What types of information can be received • How it is received • How it is processed • How it is stored • How it is retrieved

25. Receiving information • uznat’‘to learn’ • ponjat’‘to understand’ • Rational understanding: osoznat’ ‘to realize’, soobrazit’ ‘figure out’, etc. • Irrational understanding: ugadat’ ‘to guess’, osenit’ ‘to dawn upon’, etc.

26. Types of information • znat’ adres <imja, nomer telefona>‘to know the address <name, phone number’ • pomnit’ adres <imja, nomer telefona>‘to remember the address <name, phone number’ • *ponimat’ adres <imja, nomer telefona>‘to understand the address <name, phone number’

27. Types of information • pomnit’ vcherashnij vecher • ‘to remember yesterday’s evening’ • *znat’ vcherashnij vecher‘to know yesterday’s evening’ • ?ponimat’ vcherashnij vecher‘to understand yesterday’s evening’ experiential vs. informational memory

28. Storing information • Controlled:vyuchit’ ‘learn’, zauchit’ ‘learn by heart’, vyzubrit’ ‘swot up’, zatverdit’ ‘drill’, … • Uncontrolled: zapomnit’sja ‘stay /stick into one’s memory’, zapast’ v pamjat’ ‘be imprinted in one’s memory’ • Ja dolgo zapominal ix adres ‘I spent some time memorizing their address’ VS. • Ja nazval otel’, adres kotorogo sluchajno zapomnil ‘I mentioned an hotel whose address I chanced to remember’

29. Information storages • golova ‘head’ • um ‘mind, intellect’ • soznanie ‘mind, conscience’ • pamjat’ ‘memory’

30. Um processes current information: • reshat’ v ume zadachi ‘mentally solve problems ’ • igrat’ v ume v shaxmaty’ ‘play blindfold chess’ • ??xranit’ v ume ‘store in one’s mind/intellect’

31. Soznanie • holds freshly perceived information, is responsible for the perception of the current situation and for instant processing (the human RAM) • is rather small: aeto ne umeshchaetsja v soznanii ‘the mind cannot accommodate it’ • soznanie zapolneno odnoj mysl’ju <odnim voprosom> ‘the mind is full with the only thought <the only topic>’

32. English equivalents of soznanie • conscience • consciousness • sense • mindThree fundamental “faculties” of mindare memory, imagination, and reason (Francis Bacon, Novum Organum) – Tri sfery soznanija: pamjat’, voobrazhenie i razum

33. Pamjat’ • ‘the ability of a person A1 to store and recall in his/her mind (vsoznanii) images of earlier perceived objects, experienced feelings, and other earlier received information of type A2, or an invisible organ inside A1’s head which implements this ability’

34. Pamjat’ as an ability • xoroshaja pamjat’ na lica <na daty>‘good memory for faces <dates>’ • zritel’naja <dvigatel’naja> pamjat’‘visual <motor> memory’ • uxudshenie <poterja> pamjati ‘memory impairment <loss of memory>’

35. Pamjat’ as an organ • otlozhit’sja v pamjati (lit. ‘be deposited in one’s memory’) ‘stay in one’s memory’ • vyzyvat’ v pamjati (lit. ‘call force in one’s memory’) ‘recall, remind’ • osvezhit’ v pamjati (‘refresh in one’s memory’) • derzhat’ <xranit’> v pamjati (‘store in one’s memory’) • vyvetrit’sja iz pamjati (lit. ‘be weathered out of one’s memory’) ‘be effaced from one’s memory’

36. Syncretic usage Most of the cases: • xoroshaja <blestjashchaja, cepkaja> pamjat’ ‘good <brilliant, tenacious> memory’ • ploxaja <dyrjavaja, korotkaja> pamjat’ ‘bad <sieve-like, short> memory’ (= kurinaja pamjat’ lit. ‘chicken’s memory’, devich’japamjat’ lit. ‘girl’s memory’) • razvivat’ <uprazhnjat’> pamjat’ ‘to develop to exercise> one’s memory’

37. Ability/organ disjunction Quite regular in Russian: • um ‘mind/intellect’ • sovest’ ‘conscience/Gewissen’ • voobrazhenie ‘imagination’ • dusha ‘soul’ • serdce ‘heart’ • …

38. Polysemy of pamjat’ • 1.1 ‘ability or organ’: good memory • 1.2 ‘memory of a device’: computer memory • 1.3 ‘memory of a substance’: memory effect • 2.1 ‘reminiscence’:memory of a tragedy • 2.2 ‘image of a late person’: dedicate to memory • 3 ‘a reminding object’: serviz kak pamjat’ o dede ‘dinner set as a memory of thegrandfather’ • 4obsolete ‘conscience’: lezhat’ bez pamjati ‘lay unconscious’

39. Polysemy of zabyt’ • 1 ‘cease to remember’: Ja zabyl tvoj telefon ‘I forgot your phone number’ • 2 ‘leave elsewhere’: Ja zabyl zontik doma ‘I forgot my umbrella at home’ • 3.1‘lose contacts’: Ne zabyvaj staryx druzej ‘Do not forget you old friends’ • 3.2 ‘abandon’:On sovsem zabyl skripku‘He entirely gave up playing violin’

40. Semantic invariant for zabyt’ • ‘shift from the center towards periphery’ • 1: information present in the subject’s memory was not there in his mind when needed, or it shifted to some inaccessible domain • 2: information about the need to take or transfer an object was not there in the subject’s mind when needed • 3:a person (4: an occupation) shifted from the subject’s center of interest

41. A model of forgetting • Pamjat’ stores things that can be recalled (vspomnit’) in the mind when needed, and the forgotten information goes elsewhere in our head • *Ja xranju ego imja v pamjati, no ne mogu vspomnit’ ‘I keep his name in my memory but I cannot remember it’ • vertet’sja v golove ‘run through one’s head’ • Ja vse zabyla… umenja pereputalos’ v golove ‘I forgot everything… it got mixed up in my head’

42. A model of memory • pamjat’ ‘memory’: the ability to store and recall information and the invisible organ in the head, close to soznanie ‘conscience’ and um ‘mind’ • zapomnit’: intentionally or occasionally perceving information, put it into pamjat’, where it can be retrieved and put into soznanie • pomnit’: zapomnit’ and be able to recall • zabyt’: zapomnit’ , but later be unable to recall • vspomnit’: retrieve from pamjat’ and recall

43. Next lecture • Case studies. Lexicographic treatment of artifacts. Everyday life vocabulary.