Advances in Generative Lexicon Theory [Paperback]

This collection of papers takes linguists to the leading edge of techniques in generative lexicon theory, the linguistic composition methodology that arose from the imperative to provide a compositional semantics for the contextual modifications in meaning that emerge in real linguistic usage. Todays growing shift towards distributed compositional analyses evinces the applicability of GL theory, and the contributions to this volume, presented at three international workshops (GL-2003, GL-2005 and GL-2007) address the relationship between compositionality in language and the mechanisms of selection in grammar that are necessary to maintain this property. The core unresolved issues in compositionality, relating to the interpretation of context and the mechanisms of selection, are treated from varying perspectives within GL theory, including its basic theoretical mechanisms and its analytical viewpoint on linguistic phenomena.

This book offers papers addressing models of linguistic composition from a Generative Lexicon perspective, showing how GL has developed to account for a range of linguistic phenomena, including argument alternation, polysemy, discourse phenomena and metaphor.

Chapter 1: Introduction .- Chapter 2: Type Theory and Lexical Decomposition, James Pustejovsky .- Chapter 3: A Type Composition Logic for Generative Lexicon, Nicholas Asher and James Pustejovsky .- Chapter 4: Lexical Representation, Co-composition, and Linking Syntax and Semantics, Robert D. Van Valin, Jr .- Chapter 5: The Telic Relationship in Compounds, Christian Bassac and Pierette Bouillon .- Chapter 6: Metonymy and Metaphor: Boundary Cases and the Role of a Generative Lexicon, Sabine Bergler .- Chapter 7: Spanish Clitics, Events and Opposition Structure, Jos? M. Casta?o .- Chapter 8: Adjective-noun Combinations and the Generative Lexicon, Irena Draakovi, James Pustejovsky and Rob Schreuder .- Chapter 9: Combination of the Verb Ha- Do and lă5