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

CHAPTER 2. A FRAME SEMANTIC ANALYSIS 56
uses patterns of alternation of argument structure to group verbs and then attempts to
describe these groups in semantic terms. She says,
This work is guided by the assumption that the behaviorofaverb, particularly
with respect to the expression and interpretation of its arguments, is to
a large extent determined by its meaning. Thus verb behavior can be used effectively
to probe for linguistically relevant pertinent aspects of verb meaning.
. . . [This book] should help pave the way toward the development ofatheoryof
lexical knowledge. Ideally, such a theory must provide linguistically motivated
lexical entries for verbs which incorporate representation of verb meaning and
which allow the meanings of verbs to be properly associated with the syntactic
expressions of their arguments. (p.1)
Let us then consider, for the verb see, which participates in so many of Levin's
(1993) alternations, what connections there might bebetween the semantics of its senses
and the syntax of its arguments. The relation between the senses listed in the \Brief List
of Senses" (p. 45 ) and the complement patterns given in Table 2.1 (p. 40) is summarized
in Table 2.2 on the next page. Each dot indicates that a particular sense can occur with a
particular syntactic pattern.
As Table 2.2 suggests, the situation is complex, but not hopeless. In an ideally
simple world, there would be exactly one dot in each row and one dot in each column; that
is, each sense would have exactly one syntactic form of expression. In fact, by looking across
the rows, we can see that this is the case for all of the senses which require physical vision
(eye, faculty, news, read, visit, vide, and audience). 6 The other senses of see have
more diverse forms of expression, largely because many of them refer to states and events,
which canbeexpressedinavariety ofsyntactic forms.
Looking down the columns of Table 2.2 instead, we nd that most syntactic pat-
terns are ambiguous among two or three senses. Unfortunately, the most basic argument
structure, the simple transitive use of the verb with a single NP direct object, can express
more than a dozen meanings. In part this is a re ection of the semantic exibility of the
transitive sentence type, independent of the verb see. Another reason is the greater seman-
tic complexity of nominals (cf. Fillmore 1994); they can express not only objects of physical
perception and facts apprehended by cognition, but also facts to be investigated (deter-
mine, e.g.Let's see the temperature), people to be called upon (visit, consult), situations
6 Many other senses allow physical vision as the source of evidence for a proposition, but do not require
it. For example, process does not require physical vision; in She saw him gaining political power month by
month, the source of information can be what she heard just as well as what she eyeed. A similar argument
holds for determine, recognize, condition, etc.