| Budget Amount *help |
¥1,000,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,000,000)
Fiscal Year 1994: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
Fiscal Year 1993: ¥500,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000)
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| Research Abstract |
I proposed the new framework of semantics which consists of semantic rules based on X'-schemata which generate basic semantic structures of predicates, especially verbs. These basic semantic structures are transformed by semantic rules into "surface" semantic structures, which are linked to syntactic forms : in the proposed semantic framework, there are two semantic levels, deep semantic structures and surface ones. The former are related to the latter by rules such as predicate-raising, constant-incorporation, semantic conflation, and others. This is one of the crucial departures from the existing models of semantics.
The X'-semantic rules generate basic (deep) semantic structures which account for basic meanings of verbs. However, many verbs have derived meanings as well as basic ones. These derived meaning can be accounted for in this framework as a result of semantic extension caused by semantic rules. As an instance of semantic extension, I examined resultative constructuions in English and argued that resultative constructuions should be analyzed as semantically derived sturctures in terms of semantic conflation.
In X'-semantics, semantic structures are not static but dynamic ; they undergo various kinds of semantic rules. Based on this view of semantic structures, I proposed that middle constructions are derived by the semantic passive rule which applies the semantic structures involving predicates CAUSE and DO.This analysis makes the correct prediction about passive meaning, stativity, and other poroperties of middle constructions.
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