Perspectives on Semantic Roles

Perspectives on Semantic Roles PDF Author: Silvia Luraghi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027269858
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 336

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Book Description
Semantic roles have continued to intrigue linguists for more than four decades now, starting with determining their kind and number, with their morphological expression, and with their interaction with argument structure and syntax. The focus in this volume is on typological and historical issues. The papers focus on the cross-linguistic identification of semantic-role equivalents, on the regularity of, and exceptions concerning change and grammaticalization in semantic roles, the variation of encoding the roles of direction and experiencer in specific languages, presenting evidence for identifying a new semantic role of speech addressee in Caucasian languages, on semantic roles in word formation, and finally a cross-linguistic comparison of the functions and the grammaticalization of the ethical dative in some Indo-European languages. The book will be of interest to anyone involved with case and semantic roles, with the syntax-semantics interface, and with semantic change and grammaticalization.

Perspectives on Semantic Roles

Perspectives on Semantic Roles PDF Author: Silvia Luraghi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027269858
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 336

Get Book

Book Description
Semantic roles have continued to intrigue linguists for more than four decades now, starting with determining their kind and number, with their morphological expression, and with their interaction with argument structure and syntax. The focus in this volume is on typological and historical issues. The papers focus on the cross-linguistic identification of semantic-role equivalents, on the regularity of, and exceptions concerning change and grammaticalization in semantic roles, the variation of encoding the roles of direction and experiencer in specific languages, presenting evidence for identifying a new semantic role of speech addressee in Caucasian languages, on semantic roles in word formation, and finally a cross-linguistic comparison of the functions and the grammaticalization of the ethical dative in some Indo-European languages. The book will be of interest to anyone involved with case and semantic roles, with the syntax-semantics interface, and with semantic change and grammaticalization.

Advances in Research on Semantic Roles

Advances in Research on Semantic Roles PDF Author: Seppo Kittilä
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
ISBN: 9027266794
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 219

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Book Description
Especially in functional-typological linguistics, semantic roles have been studied thoroughly, because they constitute a good starting point for any study on argument marking due to their semantically defined nature. However, the very concept of semantic roles is far from being without problems, and there is still no consensus on how the roles are best defined. In this volume, the notion will be discussed from novel perspectives with the aim of providing new insights into our understanding of semantic roles. Two of the papers deal with semantic role clusters, one with semantic roles in verbless constructions, one with diachrony of semantic roles and two with individual semantic roles that have not been studied in too much detail in previous studies. The book may not offer answers to all questions the readers may have, but at least it raises interesting further questions relevant to arriving at a better understanding of semantic roles. Originally published in Studies in Language Vol. 38:3 (2014).

Semantic Role Universals and Argument Linking

Semantic Role Universals and Argument Linking PDF Author: Ina Bornkessel
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
ISBN: 3110219271
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 373

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Book Description
The concept of semantic roles has been central to linguistic theory for many decades. More specifically, the assumption of such representations as mediators in the correspondence between a linguistic form and its associated meaning has helped to address a number of critical issues related to grammatical phenomena. Furthermore, in addition to featuring in all major theories of grammar, semantic (or 'thematic') roles have been referred to extensively within a wide range of other linguistic subdisciplines, including language typology and psycho-/neurolinguistics. This volume brings together insights from these different perspectives and thereby, for the first time, seeks to build upon the obvious potential for cross-fertilisation between hitherto autonomous approaches to a common theme. To this end, a view on semantic roles is adopted that goes beyond the mere assumption of generalised roles, but also focuses on their hierarchical organisation. The book is thus centred around the interdisciplinary examination of how these hierarchical dependencies subserve argument linking - both in terms of linguistic theory and with respect to real-time language processing - and how they interact with other information types in this process. Furthermore, the contributions examine the interaction between the role hierarchy and the conceptual content of (generalised) semantic roles and investigate their cross-linguistic applicability and psychological reality, as well as their explanatory potential in accounting for phenomena in the domain of language disorders. In bridging the gap between different disciplines, the book provides a valuable overview of current thought on semantic roles and argument linking, and may further serve as a point of departure for future interdisciplinary research in this area. As such, it will be of interest to scientists and advanced students in all domains of linguistics and cognitive science.

Case, Animacy and Semantic Roles

Case, Animacy and Semantic Roles PDF Author: Seppo Kittilä
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9027206805
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 361

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Book Description
The chapters of this volume scrutinize the interplay of different combinations of case, animacy and semantic roles, thus contributing to our understanding of these notions in a novel way. The focus of the chapters lies on showing how animacy affects argument marking. Unlike previous studies, these chapters primarily deal with lesser studied phenomena, such as animacy effects on spatial cases and the differences between cases and adpositions in the coding of spatial relations. In addition, theoretical and diachronic issues related to case and semantic roles are also discussed; for example, what is case, how do cases develop and what are the functional differences between cases and adpositions? The chapters deal with a variety of different languages including Uralic languages, Indo-European languages, Basque, Korean and Vaeakau-Taumako. The book is appealing to anyone interested in case, animacy and/or semantic roles.

The Grammatical Relevance of Thematic Roles

The Grammatical Relevance of Thematic Roles PDF Author: Dorothea Kallfass
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3638768139
Category :
Languages : en
Pages : 29

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2004 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,7, Humboldt-University of Berlin, course: Ergativity: A Comparative Perspective, 16 entries in the bibliography, language: English, abstract: Thematic roles are a linguistic phenomenon describing the more specific relations between a predicate and its respective arguments. This is especially important in the field of language acquisition, or, more generally stated, for the process of understanding. A discussion of thematic roles is closely linked to one of the most complex questions ever: what is meaning? Thematic roles are a linguistic approach to this question which is characterized by its comparative simplicity. Still, it is a complex theory. It ist acknowledged that if you know the grammar of a language you really know this language. Since grammar takes a closer look at units of speech such as sentences, and smaller chunks of sentences, one has to come up with some strategies for interpreting these chunks and the sort of relation they have with each other in order to know grammar. Theta theory is one of these strategies, focusing on "who does what to whom in a clause". In short: a predicate is able to assign certain thematic roles to its respective arguments - we say that predicates have a thematic structure. The part of grammar whicht regulates the assignment of these roles is called theta theory. As an issue of linguistic interest, thematic roles have gained importance during the last two decades. Theta theory as part of the Government and Binding Theory will be discussed in the following chapters. First, the theory has to be localized in the field of grammar. Then, there follows a brief introduction to Noam Chomsky's current theory of principles and parameters. After these introductory sections the main issues will be addressed, for example the grammatical relevance of thematic roles, and also the question as to which extent theta marking is gram

Semantic Role Labeling

Semantic Role Labeling PDF Author: Martha Palmer
Publisher: Morgan & Claypool Publishers
ISBN: 1598298321
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 103

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Book Description
This book is aimed at providing an overview of several aspects of semantic role labeling. Chapter 1 begins with linguistic background on the definition of semantic roles and the controversies surrounding them. Chapter 2 describes how the theories have led to structured lexicons such as FrameNet, VerbNet and the PropBank Frame Files that in turn provide the basis for large scale semantic annotation of corpora. This data has facilitated the development of automatic semantic role labeling systems based on supervised machine learning techniques. Chapter 3 presents the general principles of applying both supervised and unsupervised machine learning to this task, with a description of the standard stages and feature choices, as well as giving details of several specific systems. Recent advances include the use of joint inference to take advantage of context sensitivities, and attempts to improve performance by closer integration of the syntactic parsing task with semantic role labeling. Chapter 3 also discusses the impact the granularity of the semantic roles has on system performance. Having outlined the basic approach with respect to English, Chapter 4 goes on to discuss applying the same techniques to other languages, using Chinese as the primary example. Although substantial training data is available for Chinese, this is not the case for many other languages, and techniques for projecting English role labels onto parallel corpora are also presented. Table of Contents: Preface / Semantic Roles / Available Lexical Resources / Machine Learning for Semantic Role Labeling / A Cross-Lingual Perspective / Summary

The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition

The Discipline of Organizing: Professional Edition PDF Author: Robert J. Glushko
Publisher: "O'Reilly Media, Inc."
ISBN: 1491911719
Category : Computers
Languages : en
Pages : 560

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Book Description
Note about this ebook: This ebook exploits many advanced capabilities with images, hypertext, and interactivity and is optimized for EPUB3-compliant book readers, especially Apple's iBooks and browser plugins. These features may not work on all ebook readers. We organize things. We organize information, information about things, and information about information. Organizing is a fundamental issue in many professional fields, but these fields have only limited agreement in how they approach problems of organizing and in what they seek as their solutions. The Discipline of Organizing synthesizes insights from library science, information science, computer science, cognitive science, systems analysis, business, and other disciplines to create an Organizing System for understanding organizing. This framework is robust and forward-looking, enabling effective sharing of insights and design patterns between disciplines that weren’t possible before. The Professional Edition includes new and revised content about the active resources of the "Internet of Things," and how the field of Information Architecture can be viewed as a subset of the discipline of organizing. You’ll find: 600 tagged endnotes that connect to one or more of the contributing disciplines Nearly 60 new pictures and illustrations Links to cross-references and external citations Interactive study guides to test on key points The Professional Edition is ideal for practitioners and as a primary or supplemental text for graduate courses on information organization, content and knowledge management, and digital collections. FOR INSTRUCTORS: Supplemental materials (lecture notes, assignments, exams, etc.) are available at http://disciplineoforganizing.org. FOR STUDENTS: Make sure this is the edition you want to buy. There's a newer one and maybe your instructor has adopted that one instead.

Semantic roles in the English language. Why the English language needs the semantic roles approach to describe its sentence inherent relationships

Semantic roles in the English language. Why the English language needs the semantic roles approach to describe its sentence inherent relationships PDF Author:
Publisher: GRIN Verlag
ISBN: 3346004228
Category : Literary Collections
Languages : en
Pages : 17

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Book Description
Seminar paper from the year 2016 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,0, Christian-Albrechts-University of Kiel, language: English, abstract: The aim of this work on semantic roles is supposed to reveal that the English language needs another approach to describe the relations between entities, which are the predicate and the specific argument in sentences. This work is opened by an introduction, which is followed by a research report. In the report, a concise overview about the history of semantic roles and the development of this field of research is illustrated. Starting in the sixties of the last century, the most significant names, like Fillmore and Gruber, and their contributions are mentioned to depict the survey. Furthermore, the work is composed of a twofold perspective on case systems. The first one considers the German case system with some of its characteristics that are relevant for this topic. The other one is supposed to delineate features and properties of the English cases, which can be transferred to this issue on semantic roles. This approach allows a more detailed and structured view and therefore supports the understanding of how the English language is in need of a different description for its sentence inherent structures and relations. The author ends with a conclusion. The issue of semantic roles is a very significant one with regard to the English language. It has been established in the sixties of the nineteenth century as a counter approach to the predominant subject of syntax. As the case system in English has decreased over time, semantic roles are able to express relations within the sentence, which grammar cannot grasp.

On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases

On the Meaning of Prepositions and Cases PDF Author: Silvia Luraghi
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
ISBN: 9789027230775
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 390

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Book Description
Prepositions and cases constitute a fruitful field of research for semantics. The historical development of their meaning can shed light on the relations among the semantic roles of participants and on the organization of conceptual space. Ancient Greek allows an in-depth study of such development. The book, based on a wide, diachronically ordered corpus, aims at providing a usage-based analysis of possible patterns of semantic extension, including the mapping of abstract domains onto the concrete domain of space. An analysis of the Greek data further highlights the interplay between specific spatial relations and the internal structure of the entities involved, and shows how case semantics may account for differences on the referential level, rather than merely express clause internal relations. The first chapter contains a typologically based discussion of semantic roles, which sets the language-specific analysis in a wider framework, showing its general relevance and applicability.

Challenges at the Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface

Challenges at the Syntax-Semantics-Pragmatics Interface PDF Author: Robert D. Van Valin Jr.
Publisher: Cambridge Scholars Publishing
ISBN: 1527569691
Category : Language Arts & Disciplines
Languages : en
Pages : 330

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Book Description
This volume brings together recent scholarship addressing a number of significant issues in linguistic theory and description, including verb classification, case marking, comparative constructions, noun phrase structure, clause linkage and reference-tracking in discourse. These topics are discussed with respect to a wide range of languages, including Bamunka (Bantu), Biblical Hebrew, Japanese, Persian, Pitjantjatjara (Australia), Russian and Taiwan Sign Language. The theoretical perspective employed in these analyses is that of Role and Reference Grammar (RRG), a theory which strives to describe language structure and grammatical phenomena in terms of the interaction of syntax, semantics and discourse-pragmatics. RRG differs from other parallel-architecture, constructionally-oriented theories in important ways, particularly with respect to the ability to formulate cross-linguistic generalizations. The ability of RRG to facilitate the formulation of cross-linguistic generalizations is exemplified well in the contributions to this volume. As such, this text makes important theoretical and descriptive contributions to contemporary linguistic discussions.