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Valency vs. Patterns: What do corpora tell us about argument structure?

  • Marco Fasciolo
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Patterns of meaning in lexicography and lexicology
This chapter is in the book Patterns of meaning in lexicography and lexicology

Abstract

Large corpora have highlighted two widespread facts: that there are some verbal complements whose argument status is difficult to decide, and that there appear to be valency variations. To explain these facts, researchers have taken a corpus-driven approach: they defined prototypical valency as the most frequent pattern of verbal complements and postulated a continuum between arguments and non-arguments. I propose instead that one must use a corpus-independent, eidetic notion of valency to account for the above facts, and that one must postulate a sharp boundary between arguments and non-arguments. In §1 I discuss some epistemological shortcomings of a corpus-driven approach. In §§2 and 3, I introduce some corpus-independent criteria for accessing eidetic valency, and apply them to familiar questions about valency. In §4, I argue for the need to recognise the mutual independence of a number of properties: namely, being an argument, being optionally/obligatorily expressed, and being conceptually required.

Abstract

Large corpora have highlighted two widespread facts: that there are some verbal complements whose argument status is difficult to decide, and that there appear to be valency variations. To explain these facts, researchers have taken a corpus-driven approach: they defined prototypical valency as the most frequent pattern of verbal complements and postulated a continuum between arguments and non-arguments. I propose instead that one must use a corpus-independent, eidetic notion of valency to account for the above facts, and that one must postulate a sharp boundary between arguments and non-arguments. In §1 I discuss some epistemological shortcomings of a corpus-driven approach. In §§2 and 3, I introduce some corpus-independent criteria for accessing eidetic valency, and apply them to familiar questions about valency. In §4, I argue for the need to recognise the mutual independence of a number of properties: namely, being an argument, being optionally/obligatorily expressed, and being conceptually required.

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Patterns of meaning in lexicography and lexicology 1
  4. Section 1: Lexicographical issues: The phraseological dimension of language in learner’s lexicography and the PhraseBase project
  5. Introduction to the PhraseBase project 15
  6. A theory for a usage-based cognitive lexicography 19
  7. Exploring BERT’s contextualized word embeddings: a suitable method for a lexicography-oriented analysis of argument structures? 91
  8. Towards a phrase-based active dictionary 111
  9. Section 2: Theoretical issues
  10. Verb senses and argument semantics: From linguistic theory to lexicographic practice 119
  11. Valency vs. Patterns: What do corpora tell us about argument structure? 139
  12. Layer upon layer, mistake after mistake – a case for learner’s dictionaries? 159
  13. Patterns of meanings between syntax and lexicon. a lexicological and lexicographic overview of italian partially lexically specified constructions 181
  14. A carry-coals-to-Newcastle exercise: The nature of phraseological units and their place in a constructicon of english 207
  15. Section 3: Methodological issues
  16. Language awareness as a prerequisite for a successful use of lexicographic resources 239
  17. Regular polysemy in Spanish nouns: corpus analysis and some implications for lexicography 257
  18. No word is an island: The phraseological nature of lemma in interlingual comparison 277
  19. Analysing, compiling, and representing argument pattern structures: From form to meaning and back 297
  20. Index 317
https://doi.org/10.1515/9783111545943-007

Chapters in this book

  1. Frontmatter I
  2. Contents V
  3. Patterns of meaning in lexicography and lexicology 1
  4. Section 1: Lexicographical issues: The phraseological dimension of language in learner’s lexicography and the PhraseBase project
  5. Introduction to the PhraseBase project 15
  6. A theory for a usage-based cognitive lexicography 19
  7. Exploring BERT’s contextualized word embeddings: a suitable method for a lexicography-oriented analysis of argument structures? 91
  8. Towards a phrase-based active dictionary 111
  9. Section 2: Theoretical issues
  10. Verb senses and argument semantics: From linguistic theory to lexicographic practice 119
  11. Valency vs. Patterns: What do corpora tell us about argument structure? 139
  12. Layer upon layer, mistake after mistake – a case for learner’s dictionaries? 159
  13. Patterns of meanings between syntax and lexicon. a lexicological and lexicographic overview of italian partially lexically specified constructions 181
  14. A carry-coals-to-Newcastle exercise: The nature of phraseological units and their place in a constructicon of english 207
  15. Section 3: Methodological issues
  16. Language awareness as a prerequisite for a successful use of lexicographic resources 239
  17. Regular polysemy in Spanish nouns: corpus analysis and some implications for lexicography 257
  18. No word is an island: The phraseological nature of lemma in interlingual comparison 277
  19. Analysing, compiling, and representing argument pattern structures: From form to meaning and back 297
  20. Index 317
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