Seeing Clearly: Frame Semantic, Psycholinguistic, and
Cross-linguistic Approaches to the Semantics of the English Verb
See
This dissertation studies lexically-specific (irregular) polysemy,
using a case study of the English verb see as the major
example. Clearly, words such as see have different meanings
in different contexts, but how can we distinguish different senses from
mere different uses (modulations) of the same sense? What are the
semantic and paradigmatic relations among the senses? Answers to
these questions were sought through a series of psycholinguistic
experiments, formal analysis in terms of Frame Semantics
(Fillmore 1976,Fillmore 1982a,Fillmore and Atkins 1992) and other
cognitive linguistic theories, and analysis of entries in monolingual
and bilingual dictionaries. The results show that speakers can
reliably distinguish many senses of see, that the English
pattern of senses is partially shared across languages, and that frame
semantics is a good way of representing the relations among senses.
- First, the relation of semantics to world knowledge and
categorization is
discussed, and Frame Semantics, homonymy, polysemy, and monosemy,
traditional tests for polysemy, and other types of linguistic evidence
are defined.
- Then, the semantics and syntax of see are outlined and
detailed frame representations are given for 19 senses
(e.g. RECOGNIZE (saw that he left),
ENSURE (see (to it) that he leaves) and
EXPERIENCE (saw combat)) and 6 purely
compositional uses, e.g. TOUR and
HALLUCINATE, including inheritance (complete or
partial) among senses and from more general frames. Representative
collocations with see are discussed, along with other
cognitive linguistic representations, including mental spaces
(Fauconnier 1985).
- Next three psycholinguistic experiments are described, involving
(1)
free sorting of examples of uses of see, and (2) untimed, and
(3) timed classifying of examples into a priori categories. Results
suggest that speakers can reliably access finely differentiated senses
like those proposed above.
- The sense divisions for see in entries from several
English dictionaries are shown to be problematic. Entries from
bilingual
dictionaries between English and Spanish, Chinese, and Japanese
demonstrate that there is partial overlap between the senses and sense
inheritance of English and those of other languages. The similarity of
English to Spanish is greater than to the non-Indoeuropean languages.
- Finally, conclusions are drawn from all the approaches and future
research is outlined. Includes index and experimental stimuli.
Here's the entire dissertation in Postscript
format (1.5 Mb), and in
PDF
format (1.2 Mb).
Comments are welcome.