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

CHAPTER 2. A FRAME SEMANTIC ANALYSIS 72
Frame see consult
type event
cat V
lexm see
Uses consultation with authority [ca]
2
3
roles:
Seer =
6
6Seen
=
4
ca.Consulter
7
ca.Consultant 7
5
Problem = ca.Problem
val:
82
><
6
4
>:
role Seen
gf obj
39
>=
7
5
>;
(36) a. You should see a doctor about that cough.
b. You should have a doctor see about that cough.
c. ?You should get a doctor to see about that cough.
d. *Have alawyer see [you] about writing your will.
The simplest and most common pattern is seen in Ex. (36-a), but seer and seen can some-
times be swapped by adding a causative without much change in meaning, as in Ex. (36-b)
or Ex. (36-c) (the latter is pragmatically odd because of the high social status of doctors).
But this causativization seems to work only for visits to the doctor; Ex. (36-d) is bad,
perhaps because a visual examination of the patient's body is an inherent part of a medical
consultation, but not of consultations with other experts. The situation in which a person
of higher social status sees one of lower social status is treated as a separate sense of see,
i.e. audience (q.v., p. 100). Furthermore, some common expressions like this, such as
Ex. (36-b) are ambiguous among several readings, consult, ensure, and perhaps even
determine, if one is mainly concerned with diagnosis rather than cure.
The uses with Problem appearing as PP[about] may be related to the sense de-
termine and frame ascertain. For example (37-a) can be interpreted as ensure (move it
before I get a parking ticket) or determine ( nd out why itkeeps stalling at stoplights).
We would probably call (37-b) sense consult, but, as with consulting the doctor, the