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LEXICAL ENCODING OF VERBS IN ENGLISH AND BULGARIAN

Rositsa DekovaDepartment of Modern Languages, NTNU

Trondheim, Norway, NO-4791

rositsa.dekova@hf.ntnu.no

Abstract

This paper focuses on the information that

can be encoded in verbs as lexical entries, and

its formal representation both in English and

Bulgarian. For this purpose, an already existing,

but not very widespread framework is used - the

Sign Model (Dimitrova-Vulchanova, 1996/99;

Hellan and Dimitrova-Vulchanova 2000) that

describes words as meaningful cells, includingmorpho-syntactic information. Based on corpora

data and results from continuation tests, my

research is an attempt to find a unified format

for representing lexical entries not only within a

single language, but also across languages.

1 IntroductionThe knowledge that native speakers

demonstrate suggests that something beyond

word-specific idiosyncratic properties needs tobe accounted for in the lexical representation of

words. Information about the syntactic

environment in which a particular word can

appear should also be part of the lexical

encoding, a finding that is particularly relevant

for verbs.

The assumption that only some participant

information is encoded lexically is widespread

across a number of different linguistic theories.

Traditionally, participants in a situation, denoted

by a particular verb, are divided into two main

groups arguments and adjuncts (or

complements and modifiers). A verb selects a set

of arguments. The adjuncts, in contrast, are

neither required, nor dependent on the particular

verb. They can co-occur with many other verbs.

Furthermore, syntactic realization does not

always overlap with semantic obligatoriness.

Therefore, I will refer to the set of entities

included in a situation as semantic participants

(following the terms in Koenig et al. 2002),where lexically encoded semantic participants

are called arguments, and non-lexically encoded

semantic participants adjuncts. The terms

complementand modifierare used respectively

for their syntactic correlates.

2 Theoretical BackgroundAlthough it is widely accepted that the

syntactic structure of many sentences is

determined mostly or entirely by the participant

information included in the lexical entries of

verbs, there are no reliable syntactic criteriathat can be used to delimit the set of items that

can express lexically encoded participant

information. In other words, there is no

established set of necessary and sufficient

criteria that can serve as a clear-cut basis for

the distinction between information that is

lexically encoded and information that is not

(that is the distinction between arguments and

adjuncts).

One very good solution, however, has been

suggested in a paper by Koenig et al. ClassSpecificity and the Lexical Encoding of

Participant Information (Koenig et al. 2002).

They propose two criteria, semantic

obligatoriness and verb class specificity, which

jointly determine the argument status of

participant information. The authors define

lexically encoded information as that

information which is accessed immediately

upon recognition of a word. This is because

only lexically encoded participant information

is expected to play a role in the immediate

representation that readers form for sentences.

This information is said to be obligatory, that

is, it is entailed to hold of the class of

situations denoted by a word (ibid, p.226),

and it is also relatively specific to the

corresponding verbs. Those two properties can

be directly observed by language users, and

therefore, according to Koenig et al., they can

serve as criteria providing a basis for learning

the distinction between arguments andadjuncts.

mailto:rositsa.dekova@hf.ntnu.nomailto:rositsa.dekova@hf.ntnu.no

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The contrast between the verbs in sentences

(1) and (2) illustrates this approach:

1. He cut the paper with the scissors.2. She drank the cocktail with a straw.While cutalways describes a situation where

an instrument is included, drinkonly allows an

instrument to be included in some types of

situations denoted by it. Thus, the instrument

phrase with the scissors is both obligatory and

specific for the verb cut, but one does not have

to use an instrument to drink. Therefore an

instrument should be included in the lexical

representation ofcut, and need not be present in

the encoding ofdrink. Relying heavily on thesetwo criteria, namely semantic obligatoriness and

verb class specificity, I have been able to isolate

the participant information that should be

encoded in the lexical representation of a

selected set of verbs.

3 My researchI have selected basic verb types in English

and Bulgarian and examined their semantic

properties with an account of their syntacticdistribution. Special attention was paid to

approximately 20 verbs, subgroups of what are

called Verbs of Contact by Impact(as defined in

Levin, 1993) along with verbs that include

motion (in Levins classification, those fall in

the group ofThrow Verbs).

In order to determine the possible morpho-

syntactic environment of the verbs selected, I

have partially analyzed the type of syntactic

behaviour they exhibit in the available corpora. I

have also tested the results of the analysesagainst native speaker judgments in two similar

continuation tests for both languages.

3.1 Corpora used in the researchI have used Brown and LOB corpora for

English; for Bulgarian I have used a corpus that

is still under construction in the Laboratory of

Computer Modelling of Bulgarian Language, at

the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences, where I did

part of my field research. The corpora researchwas aimed at revealing the possible and/or

preferred syntactic environment of the relevant

verbs, as well as an analysis of the most

common semantic participants in relation with

their syntactic distribution.

For the purpose of this paper, I will only

show a few illustrative examples for English

(LOB corpora only) and Bulgarian. And also,as the Bulgarian corpora is very large, but does

not allow for specific searches yet, only the

first 100 of the occurrences have been analysed

in detail for verbs occurring more often.

3.2 Results and examplesThe results from the corpora research are

summarised in Table 1 and Table 2, for English

and Bulgarian, respectively.As expected, the verbs examined showed a

great tendency to occur in a syntactic

environment that consisted of elements that are

overt expressions of the semantic participants

linked to the particular verb. Thus I could

observe the relations between a semantic

participant of a verb and the possible syntactic

positions it can occupy with this verb being the

main verb in the sentence. Special attention is

paid to some of the information obtained from

the corpora analyses, and its significance forthe lexical representation of the verbs. The

focus of the paper is on the results for

Bulgarian, because it is not so well studied, and

therefore perhaps more interesting to discuss.

One peculiarity can be clearly seen in three

of the Bulgarian verbs analyzed:proboda/stab,

pljasna/slap, and potupam/tap. Aside from the

appearance of the traditionally accepted

complement (the direct object), which here is

referred to as Limit (the participant that is

affected or changed), we can see that there arealso many phrases that are identified as Body-

Part/Possessor (Levins term, ibid: 71), as

illustrated by the following examples:

(3) i go probode v sartseto.

and stabbed him in his heart.

(4)Tja pljasna Gabi po koljanoto.She slapped Gabi on her knee.

(5)i go potupah po ramoto.and slapped him on his shoulder

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The high degree of occurrences of those

phrases with particular verbs suggests that the

information conveyed by them is an important

part of the lexical representation of the verbs.

This, however, does not directly mean that we

should include them as separate participants in

the situation described. On the contrary, the

Possessor Raising phrase specifies theLimit, or

more precisely, the place of its contact with

what is called the Launch-part, but it does not

constitute a separate participant. Therefore, we

should distinguish between different types of

information all of which is important for the

lexical encoding of particular verb, but which

should not be treated in the same way.

Another interesting example would be the

presence ofpath in the verbpljasna/slap:

(6) ...opashkata mu, , pljasna vav vodata.

his tail, , slapped in the water.

(7) ...tja pljasna dolu...

she slapped down

(She fell down)

(8)...and pljasna dolu varhu trevata.and slapped down onto the grass.

(She fell down on the grass)

Whereas in sentence (6) the prepositional

phrase in the watercan not be initially identified

as path, the prepositional phrases in sentences

(7) and (8) show that in the water should also

be regarded as an overt expression of the end of

path information that is lexically encoded in the

verb. A similar behaviour is observed for other

verbs of motion (see for example Dimitrova-

Vulahanova, 2004).

4 The continuation testsTo determine what kind of participant

information should be included in the lexical

encoding of this particular set of verbs, I have

used not only data from English and Bulgarian

corpora, as described earlier, but also the results

from two similar continuation tests conducted

for both English and Bulgarian. These tests were

developed to test native speakers intuition

about the most prominent participants in asituation denoted by the target verbs.

4.1 Methodology of the testsThe tests were organized as follows: there

were 50 to 60 sentences, containing as many as

20 target verbs, together with approximately

the same amount of sentences containing

distracter verbs, equally distributed among thetarget sentences. The first 30-40 sentences

consisted only of a subject and a verb, while

the last sentences also contained a direct object.

All the participants in the tests were asked to

complete the sentences without spending too

much time on any of the items. I encouraged

the participants to write down each

continuation fast; so that it would be the first

thing that came into their mind (additional

literature on the methodology of similar type oftests can be found in Koenig et al. 2002, 2003).

The main idea behind the continuation tests

was to confirm the hypothesis that, if implicit

participant information is lexically encoded,

then it will play an important role in the

immediate representation that the readers form

for sentences, and is therefore more likely to be

used to continue a sentence. Thus I expected to

receive a significantly higher percentage of

continuations related to semantic participant

information, than the percentage of theresponses that do not include lexically encoded

participant information.

4.2 Results and analysis

Some of the results for Bulgarian (in per

cent) can be seen in Table 3, in the Appendix.

The tests for English have not yet been fully

completed, but the analyses so far are

consistent with the results from the Bulgarian

tests. There are higher percentages ofcontinuations related to information about

semantic participants: approximately 90% of

the continuations for tap, stab, and cutcan be

defined as Limit. And since the answers differ

widely from each other (e.g. continuations for

cut included: the bread, John, her finger, her

hair, her knee) it can not just be assumed that

the results are merely due to the existence of a

certain stereotype or a phraseological unit

containing the target verb.

The continuations provided for thesentences also confirmed the corpora analyses

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as can be seen in the tables in the Appendix. In

addition, the continuations for the second half of

the sentences in the tests, which were virtually

complete (as described earlier, the sentences

had a subject, verb, and a direct object),

contained a high degree of fillers that were

consistent with the information assumed to besemantically encoded. Instrument/Body

extension constituted 90% of the fillers for stab,

27% - for cut, and 37% - for tap.

5 The formal descriptionSo far we have seen that the kind of

participant information that can be lexically

encoded, is semantically obligatory, and is

restricted to a verb, or a verb class in terms ofselection. Based on the data from the corpora

research, together with the results from the

continuation tests, I have tried to find a suitable

formalized lexical representation for the set of

verbs selected, that is, a representation that will

account for the considerable complexity, and

subtlety of their meaning.

Following a proposal made by Hellan and

Vulchanova (Hellan & Dimitrova-Vulchanova

2000) I assume that there is a set of lexical

semantic factors that serves as the basis forpredictions about the possible morpho-syntactic

environment of a verb. One of the potential

members of that set is called criteriality. In

order to define criteriality first I must briefly

describe the structural unit constituting the

meaning of a verb, called a cell (Dimitrova-

Vulchanova 1996/99).

A cell consists of two parts an aspectual

part and a dimensional part. The aspectual part

specifies the following factors:

a. Situational vs. Non-Situational reflecting whether what is expressed by

verb is situated in time or not.

b. Dynamic vs. Stative relevant only forSituational verbs and reflecting whether

some kind of change or Force emission is

involved or not.

c. Monodevelopmental vs. Non-Monodevelopmental depending on

whether the dimensional part includes

Monodevelopment or not.

d. Protracted vs. Non-Protracted acontrast that is close to the traditional

distinction durational vs. non-

durational

The dimensional part consists of a number

of dimensions. Each of them reflects a differentaspect of the involvement of one and the same

participant in the situation denoted by the verb.

It is a new decompositional approach to the

traditional Theta-roles (Dowty, 1991). The

importance has been shifted to the number of

the participants, as well as to the differentiation

of the sub-events constituting the main event.

Each of those sub-events should be separately

described in detail. All of them describe the

situation as a whole.The dimensions may consist of one or more

values. The dimension of Force, then, may

incorporate the values of Source (the

participant performing the action),Launch-Part

(the part of the participant, if any, performing

the action), andLimit(the item upon which the

force has been performed). The Control

dimension (for action that is under the control

of a participant) will incorporate the values of

the Controller, theMeans, and the Target. The

dimension of Monodevelopment (short formonotonic development) includes the value

of a Monodeveloper (the one performing the

monotonic development) together with

information about the possible respects in

which the development can take place

Integrity, Location (mainly regarding path),

and Quality, being one of the main cases.

For many verbs a further dimension of

Conditioning is possible in close relation with

Monodevelopment. Conditioning applies

when, in a given context, a given event oractor, called the Conditioner, is sufficient to

release a certain event, called Conditioned. For

example, in John broke the window, John is

the Conditioner for the event of breaking the

window. In contrast, in The window broke, no

Conditioner is identified and no Conditioning

obtains in this usage of break.

A participant in a situation is thus defined

by the set of values characterising co-indexed

elements in the different dimensions.

Furthermore, the meaning of a verb (the Cell)is identified with the conditions that have to be

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met by the participants in a situation so that it

can count as being expressed by this particular

verb. The notion of Criteriality, then, applies to

the items of a cell that have properties by which

the situation is easily identified as belonging to

a certain type.

The following items (in Hellan andVulchanova 2000) are defined as criterial:

1. An item with the valueMonodeveloper

2. A Source whose Launch-part(a) behaves monotonically, or

(b) is specified for inherent

properties

3. A Limit with sustained contact4.

An item characterized for Posture5. A Source for an iterative activitywith a cumulative Target

With this theoretical approach as the basis of

my research, I have attempted to find a unified

format for representing lexical entries not only

within a single language, but also across

languages. Thus a more formal (and probably

more accurate) comparison of verbs (their

meaning, as well as and their syntactic

behaviour) can be achieved, as it is easilypossible to compare verbs that also encode

more/less information than their correlates.

A more in depth analysis of the basic cell of

the verb tap/potupam illustrates this approach:

Cell of tap/potupam

Global specification: +Protracted

Constituency of Development: Recursion based

Mode of recursion: iterative

Recursive unit: CellnAspectual Specification: +2-point

Element specification:

Conditioning|Constituency| Force| Monodevelopment

Conditioner1 Source1

Fingers2 Launch-part2Monodeveloper

2

Limit3

Conditioned2

Cell:

Aspectual specification: +2-point

Element specification:

MonodevelopmentaElement: 2

Phasing: +2-point

Medium: Location

Line of Trajectory

End:Contact with 3

Limit3

Thus sentences (9) and (10) can be

evaluated as described bellow:

(9) John tapped his fingers on the desk.(10) His fingers tapped on the desk.

In the context of (9) John tapped his

fingers on the desk,John will be defined as theset of values (Conditioner1, Source1), his

fingers (Fingers2, Launch-part2, Mover2), and

the desk - (Absorber3, Limit3). However, in the

case of (10) His fingers tapped on the desk,

the dimension of Conditioning will not be

present.

This representational format makes this not

only possible but also easily predictable. The

basic cell contains two items that can be

counted as criterial one of them is John,

according to 2(a) (a Source whose Launch-partbehaves monotonically), and the other one is

his fingers, according to 1 (an item with the

value Monodeveloper).

The alternation, described in Levin (1993)

as Causative/Inchoative, was incorrectly

predicted by Levin as impossible with the verb

tap. According to Levins criteria, verbs

undergoing Causative/Inchoative Alternation

can be characterized as verbs of Change of

State or Change of Location. The verb tap is a

member of theHitVerbs, a sub-group of Verbsof Contact by Impact, and of two other verb

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groups, Throw verbs andInvestigate Verbs, and

was not predicted to be able to allow this

alternation. Levin may have come to this

incorrect conclusion by overlooking the

individual participants and the single sub-events

in the situation, instead regarding the situation

as a whole. As we have already seen, there is, infact, change of location, but with regard to the

Launch-part only.

6 ConclusionI have tried to show that breaking up

information for encoding into relevant semantic

features, and using a suitable formal

representation are crucial in finding a unifiedformat of representing lexical entries, not only

within a single language, but also across

languages. Thus a more formal (and probably

more accurate) comparison of verbs (their

meaning and their syntactic behaviour) can be

achieved, because this approach makes it

possible to compare verbs that encode more/less

information than their correlates. It would also

be very interesting to investigate whether the

representational format presented in this paper

can be integrated within some of the well-known lexical theories, such as Pustejovskys

Generative Lexicon (Pustejovsky, 1995). Thus

an investigation of the possible optimal

solutions will be pursued to describe those verbs

that do not have semantic equivalents in another

language. This will lead my research to a new

stage: the creation of a VerbNet, as a

Distributed Lexical Database, containing a

network of verb classes with their semantic

features.

7 AcknowledgmentsI would like to thank my colleagues and

friends at the Department of Modern

Languages, NTNU, Trondheim, who supported

me my research. As well as my colleagues at

the Laboratory of Computer Modelling ofBulgarian Language, at the Bulgarian Academy

of Sciences, Sofia, where I collected my data

for Bulgarian and who accepted me as part of

their research team.

References

M. Dimitrova-Vulchanova, 1996/99. Verb

Semantics, Diathesis and Aspect. Doctoral

dissertation, NTNU (University ofTrondheim)/LINCOM, Newcastle/

Munchen

M. Dimitrova-Vulchanova, 2004. Paths in

Verbs of Motion. Presented at the Argument

Structure CASTLE Conference, November

4-6, 2004, Troms University

D. Dowty, 1991. Thematic proto-roles and

argument selection. Language, 67(3): 547-

619.

L. Hellan, and M. Dimitrova-Vulchanova 2000.

Criteriality and Grammatical Realization. Lexical Specification and insertion. CLIT

series, John Benjamins.

J. P. Koenig, G. Mauner, B. Bienvenue,

(2002). Class Specificity and the Lexical

Encoding of Participant Information. Brain

and Language, 81, 224-235.

J. P. Koenig, G. Mauner, and B. Bienvenue,

(2003). Arguments for Adjuncts. Cognition,

89, 67-103.

Levin, B. 1993. English Verb Classes and

Alternations. Chicago and London:University of Chicago Press.

J. Pustejovsky, 1995. The Generative Lexicon.

The MIT Press.

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Appendix:

Table 1: The English corpus data

USAGE SUBJECT OBJECTVERBTrans Intrans Lit Fig

Human/

part

Meta-

phor

Instr/ or

body extensOther Argument Adjunct

cut 6923

37 pass86 43

43 source

4 limit4 limit 7

6 source

29 limit

58 limit

5 instrument12 manner

stab 41

1 pass2 2

2 source

1 limit- - 1

2 limit

1 BPP1 manner

slap 83

1 pass12 -

8 source

1 limit- - 2 source

9 limit

3 part. loc.

2 BPP

4 manner

tap 14 2 15 1 15 source - - 1

16 limit

4 instrument

1 BPP

3 manner

1 quantity

Table 2: The Bulgarian corpus data

USAGE SUBJECT OBJECT

VERBTrans Intr Lit Fig

Human/

part

Meta

phor

Instr /or

body ext.Other Argument Adjunct

rezha

(cut)

71

1 refl.

21

7 se-passive 90 12 39source 3

2/

2 wings

5 source

7 limit

71 limit

12 instr2 BPP

20 mann

8 loc3 quant

proboda

(stab)

83

4 refl.- 72 15 34source 14 12 4 source

84 limit

24 BPP

23 instr

9 mann

4 quant

1 time

1 loc

pljasna

(slap)10 31 41 -

21source

1 (face)-

3

(feet/tail)

3

(object)

4 (bird)

19 limit

15 instr

13 BPP

6 path end

3 mann

3 quant

2 loc

potupam

(tap)

93

5 refl.

2100 - 76source - 2 -

95 limit

72 BPP

7 instr/b.e.

13 mann

2 loc

1 time

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Table 3: Results from the continuation test for Bulgarian

SentenceInstr/

Body extLimit Path

Body-Part/

PossessorLoc Temp Manner Other

3. Bob potupa

Bob tapped10

90

+3 +16 +3

8. Lucy pljasna

Lucy slapped37

26

+10 +313 7

17

shamar

slap

9. Margaret otrjaza

Margaret cut93 7 (s.o.)

11. Billy probode

Billy stabbed

7

+2

90

+13(-)

26. Knigata pljasna

The book slapped10

70 origin

3 end10

3

3(-)

28. Nozhat rezhe

The knife cuts43 47

7

3(-)

32. Valnite pljaskaha

The waves slapped57 3 27

3

10(-)

34. Lilly otrjaza hljaba

Lilly cut the bread27 47 26

36. Ann probode mesoto

Ann stabbed the meat90 10

38. Iva potupvashe po

masata

Iva tapped on the table

37 533

7(-)

Legend:

Argument: lexically encoded semantic

participant

Adjunct: non-lexically encoded semanticparticipant

Instr/or body ext. (b.e.): instrument or body

extension (hand, finger, leg, foot) used as an

instrument

Human/part: human or part of a human (face,

head, eyes, hair)

Trans: transitive usage of the verb

Intrans: intransitive usage of the verb

Lit: literal usage of the verb

Fig: figurative usage of the verb

Source: the participant performing the action

Limit: the participant that is affected or

changed

BPP: body-part/possessor

Loc: (event) location

Part. loc: participant locationPass: passive

Se-pass: se-passive (a certain type of passive in

Bulgarian)

Refl: reflexive

Quant: quantity

Mann: manner

Temp: temporal (time)

(-): no continuation was provided

(s.o.): someone

+: refers to continuations provided in addition

to the first one