The Verb Semantics In English Resultative Constructions

The study of lexical semantics and lexical representation has been increasingly important in linguistics for the needs in natural language parsing (NLP), computer science, and artificial intelligence (AI). It is required that the meanings of lexicon be fully analyzed and, if possible, be decomposed in nearly primitive, so that the semantics of language can be computable in a formal way.The study of linguistics falls into, generally speaking, two categories, namely, the formalism and the functionalism. In the formalist view, the study of language form alone can reach the nature of language and meaning is thought as self-derived from mental dictionary that is independent of language form. Therefore semantics does not receive enough attention and even be nearly ignored. The functionalism sees language function o as the basis of study. But functionalist approach toward semantics is mainly theoretic which lacks of refined formal representations.Taking the perspective of meaning-form interface, this paper probes into the semantics of verbs in resultative constructions and then it attempts to offer a formalism for the verb semantics in resultatives.The paper begins with a general survey of traditional semantics, mainly about the advantages and disadvantages in componential analysis (CA) approach. The author also talks about the influence of cognitive science on the study of meaning. Then the paper has a multi-dimensional view on the modern semantics, which leads to the perspective of this research.The paper then investigates the approaches in lexical semantics and lexical representation in detail. With the introduction of the new development in lexical semantics, the paper mainly discusses Frame Semantics, Semantic Structure theory, and Construction Grammar. With respect to lexical representation, the paper probes into the formalism of HPSG theory. But the HPSG formalism in this paper is incorporated with Davis'inheritance lexical semantics. The paper attempts to makes use of the models offered in relevant theories to reach an elaborate analysis of study of word meanings and then find out comprehensive way for the representation for lexical semantics.Then the paper goes on lengths discussing the relationship between semantics and syntax. With the notions of thematic roles and argument structure, the paper illustrates how semantic properties will shed constraints on their syntactic structures. Of course, the discussion will be mainly focused on the scope of semantics and structures of resultative constructions.The issues of verb semantics in resultative constructions are taken in detail in the following parts. It first gives a more thorough study on resultatives and then makes a comparison on the latest classifications on resultatives by scholars. Based on the categorization conducted by distinguished scholars, the paper gives a general representation for the verb semantics in each subcase of resultative constructions.Next, the paper includes the pragmatic aspect of lexical semantic study in resultative constructions. Constructionists argue that their study is a unified approach of form, semantics and pragmatic property of language, but doubts still remain on whether pragmatic property has been dealt with in the real sense. This chapter just offers a tentative look in general.The paper concludes at a highlightened statement that the study of verb semantics in resultative constructions has produced fruitful results to lexical semantics and lexical representation, despite the small flaws of the theories applied in this paper.