A Computational Framework for Non-Lexicalist Semantics

Jimmy Lin

Abstract: Under a lexicalist approach to semantics, a verb completely encodes its syntactic and semantic structures, along with the relevant syntax-to-semantics mapping; polysemy is typically attributed to the existence of different lexical entries. A lexicon organized in this fashion contains much redundant information and is unable to capture cross-categorial morphological derivations. The solution is to spread the "semantic load" of lexical entries to other morphemes not typically taken to bear semantic content. This approach follows current trends in linguistic theory, and more perspicuously accounts for alternations in argument structure. I demonstrate how such a framework can be computationally realized with a feature-based, agenda-driven chart parser for the Minimalist Program.