Seeing clearly: Frame Semantic, Psycholinguistic, and Cross ...

CHAPTER 2. A FRAME SEMANTIC ANALYSIS 54
(23) Jan saw Pat and so did Chris.
Suppose a memo is written in a language that Isabel can understand but Alicia cannot.
Then Ex. (24) is odd, because we suppose that Isabel read and understood the memo
(sense read), while Alicia just saw incomprehensible letters on a page (sense eye).
(24) Isabel saw the memo and so did Alicia.
Summary
Unfortunately, as many authors have noted, conclusions about sense di erentiation
based on one of these tests often di er from those based on another, and many other factors
may in uence judgements.
For example, Ex. (25-a), which should be an instance of setting + setting may
be questionable because of general semantic constraints on coordination, regardless of the
zeugma problem. But there cannot simply be a rule against coordinating a place and a
time; other factors seem to be at work, also, e.g. Ex. (25-b) seems fairly acceptable, but
Ex. (25-c) seems worse.
(25) a. ?The fteenth century and northern Italy saw a owering of the visual arts.
b. When we think of great painting, we think of the fteenth century and Italy.
c. ?The fteenth century and Italy were Jeri's primary research interests.
Furthermore, there is considerable disagreement among speakers in their judgements on
these tests, such as whether Ex. (26) is acceptable in a \crossed readings" situation (e.g.
when John had a physical examination and Mary had a date). Ex. (16-a) (above) also elicits
di ering judgements.
(26) John saw Dr. Jones today and Mary did, too.
Thus, the apparently simple question of exactly how many senses there are and
how we can test for divisions between them probably has no simple answer. It may bemore
productive totake the rather ne breakdown given above as a starting point and look into
the semantic and syntactic relations among these putative senses.