From: AAAI Technical Report SS-95-01. Compilation copyright © 1995, AAAI (www.aaai.org). All rights reserved.
Generativity,
Type Coercion and Verb Semantic Classes
Patrick
SAINT-D~
IR1T-CNRS
118, route de Narbonne
31062
TOULOUSE FRANCE
stdizier@irit.fr
1.
Aims
In this document, we present aspects related to
generativity and to polysemyfirom a long-term ongoing
research whoseaims are (I) to defmethe conumtsof
electronic dictionary that represents and organizes the
syntaxand the semanticsof predicative formsso that they
can directly be used for NLPapplications and (2)
specify and to evaluate mcthods for creating such a
dictionmyfromcorpora of various forms, domainspecific
thesaurus andpaper dictionaries. Weare developing
methodsand tools in information re~eval and automatic
construction
of abstracts
of textswhichrequire
the
extraction of predicate-argumentstructures (Pugeault et
al. 94). A detailed description of syntactically and
semanticallyorganised
classes
of predicates is therefore
particularly useful and crucial to us. This type of
information is moreover useful in a numberof other
applications.
Webasically take into account two major sources of
knowledge
to create lexical entries: dictionary definitions
and corpora. Wealso consider thesaurus associated with
specific domainswhich makemoreexplicit, even in an
incomplete way, certain formsofinformation. Besides
creating a dictionary for NIP, our goal is also to show,
within the scope of our study, howthe different sources
of information interfere, and howmuchof the workcan
be automated,at what cost, and what should be left to a
humanexpert. The importanceof: these criteria clearly
dependson the granularity of the lexicon one wants to
~tttJtln.
In this document,we first introduce the waywe have
organized and reformulated for Frenchthe verb semantic
class systemdefined by B. Levin(Levin 93) for English;
then, we showthat verb semantic classes form a very
good frameworkfor structuring the verb selectional
restriction system and the Qualia structure system.
Finally, weshowthat verb semanticclasses is a powerful
meansfor organizing and for restricting the different
forms of type coercion. In this paper only verbs will be
considered. A similar workis under wayfor predicative
nouns. In (Grimshaw90) relations betweenthe argument
structure
ofverbs
andtheargument
structure
oftheir
con’-
152
-cspondingnounsare studied and provide us with precise
hints on the type of result we should obtain. The
preposition system has been studied separately. The
results presentedhere are essentially basedon the French
verb class system; for the stoke of readability, wehave
translated into English the namesof these classes and
somerelated dst~
2. The verb
semantic
class
system
This workis primarily based on B. Lcvin’s work (Levin
93) for English, where she shows that the syntactic
behavior of verbs is essentially predictable from some
aspects of their semantics. By syntactic behavior, she
meansthe wayarguments
are distributed in a syntactic
form with respectto the predicate, howthey can move
(e.g. to defineergative or passiveforms)andwhenthey
canbe deleted. Thesemovements
anddeletionsare called
alternations.
Although B. Levin’s work corresponds to a certain
level of granularity in the linguistic description which
has a certain degree of stability, we do not think that it
really introduces a newlevel with a theoretical status in
syntax or in semantics. Rather, we consider this workas
a very useful, practical and relatively comprehensive
one,
which can form a goodperspective and a goodpractical
basis for the extractionand for the organizationof lexical
d~m
2.1 Alternations revisited:
verb class system
a more declarative
Wehave substantially reformulated B. Levin system in
order to avoid a numberof difficulties inherent to her
approach, and to makethe system more declarative and
more ~ble in NLPsystems. Wehave also added several
types of semantic information at both the class and the
verb level, namelythematic grids and fragments of the
Lexical Conceptual Structures (LCS) (Jackendoff
described in (Dau~ze, Saint-Dizier, Marrafa 95). Our
research is applied so far to French, but the techniques
can be used for other languagesin a similar manner.
Instead of consideringthe alternation systemof B. Levin,
we havereformulatedthis notion into a moredeclarative
one: we consider possible syntactic contexts for verbs.
Then, we can assign to each verb-sense the set of
syntactic contexts it myhave. By syntactic context, we
meana subcalegorization frame where the categoryand
someadditional syntactic andsemanticinformationare
usedto describethe natureandthe formof the possible
complementsand the subject of a verb (see examples
below).
Verb classes are then formed out from verbs having
similar sets of contexts. Comparedto B. Levin system,
ore" approachavoids having to define a basic form from
which
alternations
areproduced;moreoverit avoids us to
have to account for the changesin meaningpmvoqued
by
alternations (e.g. by the deletion of an argumentor by the
adjanction of a preposition). It is also easier to specify
very pre¢i~Jythe form and the contents of every element
in a context. Contents should however remain quite
general in order to avoid an explosion in the numberof
contexts.
Inparticular,
selectional restrictions
andthe
specification
ofprelx~itions
mustremain
general.
More
refined
contexts
canbespecified
at theverblevel,
whenever
necessary,
provided
thattheyremain
coherent
withthecontexts
specified
attheclass
leveL
Thelevel
of
generalityconsiders!at the classlevel is defineda priori
from data commonlyagreed upon m be of general
purpose (e.g. feature values suchashuman,animate and
object). Similarly, very limited exceptions can be
accepted in order to preserve the homogeneityand the
’completeness’of the class(i.e. verbs with very similar
meanings
should a priori belong to the sameclass). As
shall be seen below, the context system that we have
and implementedprovides us with a very powerful
tool for specifyingthe syntaxand the semanticsof verbs.
Hereis anexample
in Pmlog
of a verbclass:
class( [202,914,51,33,1212,1112],
%lists of contexts(see below)
[abandonner,
accorder,acheter,adjuger,allouer,
assigner,attribuer,ceder, choisir,conceder,
confier, decerner.distribuer,
donner,octroyer,
offrir, preter,procurer,prodiguer,promettre,
racheter, remettre,transmettre],
[[ae,th,tib],[ae,th,tiv]]).
%list of thematicgrids
% exceptions: procurer +32, abandonner
-914
Thematicroles are those definedin (Pugeaultet al. 94),
i.e.: ae (effective agen0, th (theme), tib (beneficiary
incrementaltheme), tiv (victim incrementaltheme).
Contexts:. (for the sake of readability, only positive
feanm~are mentioned)
202:
<np>, <Verb>, <np>, <pp(Ixep=a)>
914:
<np(+agent)>, <Verb(+refl)>,<np>
153
51:
33:
1212:
I112:
<rip>, <Verb>,<pp(prep=a)>,<np>
<rip>, <Vexb>,<np>
(pp not specified)
<np>, <Verb(+pa.~ve)>,
< np>,~)>
<np(+theme)>,<Verb(+refl)>,<np>.
Fromthe point of view of polysemy, we feel that a
verbclass
permits
usto det’mesomeof the syntactic and
semanticboundariesof a verb-sense. A verb in a class
corresponds to a unique sense, with a set of syntactic
realizations. This appr,~___h
providesverb-senses with a
certain stability, evenif the different contexts they may
have could alter to someextent their meaning. These
possible alterations define a family of ’variations’ around
the central sense of the verb. Different senses having a
priori different syntacticrealizations, they will be in
differentclasses.
So far, we have defined semantic classes for about
2000 verbs for French (Dau~ 94). These classes have
been defined by a combination of a manual and an
automatic analysis of texts, technical corpnsesand
dictionary
defmitlons. Theseclasses
havebeendefined on
the basis of 48 different contexts.
3. Type selection,
Qualia
verb semantic classes
structures
and
The well-known,basic idea of the GenerativeLexiconis
to avoid long enumerations of possible arguments for
predicates and to developa general type shifting system,
basedon the notion of Qualia structure
(Pnstejovsky
93).
These enumerations indeed hide the fundamental
distinction betweenbasic and derived meanings.
In the Generative lexicon, the different aspects (or
facets) of the meaningof a word (andof its asso~tted
type(s)) are summarized
in a structure called the Qualia
structure,
composed
of fourmainroles(whichcan
possibly be further specialized):the formal, constitutive,
telic
and agentiveroles. To eachverb (andmore
generally,
to eachpotential governor) are associated one or more
subcategorization
frameswhichindicate the type of the
argumentsthe verb selects. In this document,we have
directly adoptedthe Qnalia systemdef’med by James
Pustejovsky.However,other, moreor less derived, forms
ofQualia sm~:mm;
could
alsobeconsidered.
Type coercion can be viewedas a relation betweena
predicate and one of its arguments,where the’argument
does not fit exactly the subcategorizadonexpectationsof
the verb (neither directly nor by type subsumption).
that case, the type of the argumentmust be coerced to
another type, coherent with the subcategorization
expectations of the verb, for the sentence to be well-
formed.
Thisnewtypeassociated
withtheargument
is
derived
from
oneofthepredicates
pre,sent
ina Qualia
role
oftheargument.
Determining
sucha newtypeiscalled
qualia:
agentive: Pmd(Y,X): ’future having’.
wherefuture havingverbs include verbs such as:
type
otmp~s.
This
operation
hasreceived
ano0eratioual
acmrder,garantir, assigner, adjuger, attribuer, ceder,
semantics
inlogic
programming
in(Saint-Dizi~
95).
conj~r,d,~raer,
e~. (~a:,guarantee,
assign,cede,
etc.).
Themf~ge:
in a construction suchas:
3.1 Factoring out selectional restrictions
acceotathe/oan.
it will possible, via type coercionto derive an appmprLste
Verbsemantic
classes
canbeusedtofactor
outthetype
type ’future having event’ from ~e agentive role of/oan
selected
byeveryverbintheclassforeachof their
and to paraphrasethe aboveVPfor exampleas follows:
arguments.
Forexample
allthe verbsof thempecma/
acceptsWgranOguarantee/as~gn/..,
theloan.
class
select
foranobject
oftypeevent,
possibly
further
subdivided
intoprocess
ortransition,
depending
onthe
syntactic
formof theverb(Raising
or Control,
see
4. Type coercion and verb semantic
(Pnstejovsky
andBouillon
94)).
Similarly,
all
theverbs classes
oflheamuse
class
select
fora subject
oftype
event.
4.1 Introduction
Verbsemantic
classesallowus to go beyondthe
Mpoctual
typesas exemplified
aboveandanytypeof
selectional
restriction
canbefactored
outattheclass
level.
Themlectiomdrestrictions associated with eachof
theargumems
ofthe~’an~er
~passes.~n
verbclassare
forexample:
human
fortheexternal
argument,
object
for
thedirect
object
andhuman
forthethird
argument.
3.2 Specifying Qualia roles
semantic classes
by means of verb
Semanticverb classes canalso be usedto specify the
contentsof QunlLsroles. Indeed,in mostcases,a whole
familyof verbs, semanticallyrelated, canappearin a role
instead of just oneelementof the cla=~: For example,in
the case of book, instead of just having the predicate
wr/te(6:rke)in theagendve
roleof theQuaILS,
orinstead
of having the wholelist of possible verbs, it is more
convenient,and morelinguistically appropriate, to refer
mverb cLssse&wheneverpossible. As a consequence,for
the agentive Qualia role of book we have the class of
Communicationby message
verbs (including verbs such
as: mb~er,
~oire, r~diger,corriger, annoter,t~l~graphier,
ma~’,lranser/re, etc.). This can be noted in the QuaiLs
strucun~as follows:
book(X).
qualla:
agentive: Pmd(Y,X) : ’communication
message’
where Pred is a variable typed ’communication by
message’.
All the predicatesof this classbearthe same
type (e.g. event, or communication
event); this makes
type shifting simpler andmoregeneral since the type of
the cla~¢ is consideredinstead of the type of eachverb in
the fla~q=
Similarly, the QuaiLsstructure of the agentiveQualia
role of the noun/oanis of the form:
loan(X)
154
Dependingon the semanticclass the predicate belongsto,
and for each argument, only someapplications of type
toe.ion ate linguistically appropri~3_~This is what we
call in (Saint-Dizler 95) the appropriateness function
whichrestricts thescope of type shifting. For example,
in a sentence like begin a novel only the telic and the
agentive roles of novel ate relevant
Begin is indeed an
aspectual verb and it basically selects an object of type
event. This consideration can be dealt with a certain
degree of generality usingthe verb semantic
classes. The
exampleof begin can indeed be generalized to all verbs
of thesameclass (such as cease, commence, end,
finish, repem, thebegin verb class of B. Levin). Letus
nowcharacmtize in a moregeneral mannerthe relations
betweenverb classes and type coercion.
Wemodelthe appropriateness function by meansof
qualia role selectional constraints. Let us integrate
appropriatenessin a wayquite similar to appropriateness
in type feature
systems
(TFS).LetAppbe a partial
function
mapping
thesetofshifting
operations
Y-l(ti)
defined
fromtypeti of theargument
A to themost
general set of types A maybe coerced to with respect to
the semanticctAtq s of the predicate P. Let Qbe the set
of all QuaiLsstructures, then if S is the set of all
semantic classess,thenthe appropriateness
function is
an application from T x Q x S into T. Let us note the
appropriatene~function as follows:
r’l(s,ti) = App0iI(ti), s) ~ ~:l(ti)
Appselects aliases in Y.l(ti) for which coercion
appropriate.
The appropriateness function can be applied
recursively whenseveral type shifting operations are
_ne¢__~. It is then recursively defined from the
appropriateness set of the preceding level and the
semantic type si of the word being considered at this
r2(ai:i) = r2(si, rkspt’i))
and.more
generally:.
r,%.~)-r,,(~, r"-k.., r~(s~,t’0)).
The ~sms~ionof I "~ is monotoneincreasing. The set
of all _l~t_~’ble ~ types is noted r(s,q). This
defines the denotational semanticsof type shifting in a
mere rmuic~ manner since we have:
r(s,~) ~ ~(q).
l~jpo co.ion is d~u~! o. this ~a.
4.2 Restrictions on type coercion application
and verb semantic classes
Afirst result of our investigationsis that all the verbs of
a given class are subject to the same set of type
c~m~ions.By ’type of coercion’ we meancoercion on the
agenfive, relic, formal or constitutive roles of the
argument
There
arevery fewexceptions in French
which
areexpressions
whichareeithertotally
or partly
inconect.
Letusconsider
thede/ay
verbclass,
composed
oftheverbs:
ajowner,
remettre,
repousaer
andretmlr.
All
these
verbs
admit
thefollowing
typecoercions:
- coe~ionon the relic or agentive roles of the subject
argument"
La nei&e retarde le train -> la tombe~ede la nei&e
retarde le train (the (falling of the) snowdelays the
train).
Similarly, we can say:
Laneige
ajourne/repousae/remet
lardunion.
However,the use of remeareis slightly less usual than
the three other verbs in this context.
- cocoonon the constitutive or formal roles of the
subject argumentLa banquerepousse/remetlajourne/retarde
la re!union->
ie directeur de la banquerepousae/remet/ajourne/retarde
la rcfunion
this array shows, for each verb class, the type of
coercions which are appropriate. For example, for the
f’wst class (the grant verb class), the subject (S) and
second object (02) arguments can be subject to type
coercionon either their constitutive or formalroles. The
relic
andtheagentive
roles are relevantfor the objectl.
In this array, we can fbst notice that almost any class
of verb accepts type coercion on the constitutive or
formal
role ofthe subject
argumentandonone ofthe
object
arguments((31 or O2). This is not very surprising
since it is very frequent to use a part of an object or a
moregeneral term to refer to that object. Forexamplean
institution is used for its members,its staff or its
manager(typical cases are e.g. the following classes:
grant, read, talk, report, ask anddebate). However,
this
type of coercion is naturally not possible whenthe
semantics of the predicate requires the argumentto
precisely indicate whatisat stake. This is the case for
verbs of the followingclasses: forbid, save, differentiate
andrefund
(for
theobject(s)
argument(s)).
Next,wecanalso noticethat verbshavinga certain
degree of asl~nmllty can have a coercion on the tefic or
agentiveroles of their object argument.Severalclasses of
verbs are concerned.This situation is due to the fact that
a numberof verbs select an object NPwhichis either an
object or an event or state. This kind of ambiguityallows
simple type coercion from the object type to the event
type. This is the case for exampleof the followingverb
classes: report, ask, debate.forbidandorganize. Thesame
situation occurs for subject argumentsof a numberof
other verbs such as: hasten, delay, benefit, save, change
andimorove.
Finally, and moregenerally, we can notice that there
are basically two families of type coercion: coe~ious
involving agentive or relic roles and coercion involving
formal or consfitudve roles of the verb’s arguments.
Thesetwofamilies correspondto substantially different
forms of metonymies.
(the (director of the) bank postpones/delays..,
meeting).
- coercion on the constitutive or formal roles of the
object:
Jeanreoousae/remet/ajourne/retarde
far,union->
Jeanrepoasselremetlajoarne/retarde
la datede la
rdunion
(John
postpones
the(date
ofthe)meeting).
- coercionon the telic or agentiveroles of the object:
Jeanreoousselremet/ajoarne/retarde
lad~cision->
Jean repouaselremetlajourne/retarde la prise de la
d~c/.ffon. (Johnpostponesthe (taking of the) decision).
Let us nowconsider the array given in the annex. This
array thus def’mes in extension the appropriateness
function introduced above. Ona sample of verb clas~,
155
To concludethis section let us considera fewexamples
that will illustrate the array givenin the annex.Verbsof
the amuseclass accept type coercion on the agentive or
the relic
roles of the subject
argument
as in:
Le clownamuseles enfants
whichshould be read as:
Leaacres da clownamusentlesenfants
(The clown amusesthe children -> The actions of the
clownamusethe children).
Put verbs accept type coercion on the constitutive or
formal role of their object argument (or containercontaineeif there is sucha role): for example:
mettre
l’eau sur la table
-> mettre
lacarafed" eausur la table
(Put the water on the table -> put the jug of water on the
table).
Wehave the same phenomenonfor e.g. rermTving and
p~h-p~! verbs.
tocontext variations, consider theabove
example:
Le clownanu~lesenfants->
L~: enfants
sontam~s
par/edown(passive
alteration).
(the clownamusesthe children)
This 1~,~ sentencestandingfor:.
4.3 Type coercion and context variation
Lesenfan:s
sontamus4s
par/e.s
ac~ns
duc/own.
(Children
areamused
bytheactions
oftheclown).
Another
important
result
is thatalternations
donota
Fromduit point of view, we mayconsider that this lnn~
priori
preserve
thepossibility
ofusing
typecoercion
on
type of coercion is moresuperficial (in tamsof
theagentive
or telicrolesof movedargument(s). betweenthe original and shifted types) than the coercion
Reformulated
inourapproach
basedoncontexts
instead
basedon telic and agentiveroles. Besidesalternations, it
ofaltm’nafions,
thismeans
thattypecoercion
doesnot
shonldbe noticed that there are other symacticeffects that
applytmiformly
to anycontext
of a givenverb.The
mayalso limit the application of type coercion.
results
given
intheannex
arebased
ontheformwhich
is
commonly
admitted
tobe the"basic’
form,orthemost
usual
formofthepredica~
5. Conclusion
Therefore, sentences which are well-formed because
typo coercioncan be applied on their "msic’ form, mayno
longer he ~__~-ptablein other contexts. This is the case,
for example,in:
Jeanconunencesot livre. (John begins
a book), standing
for:.
Jeanconmtencel’~crimred’un liw’e, but
* Un livre commence
is illformed, whereas:
L’~cri~re d’~ ~ commence
is c~Tecc
The aboveexampleshowsthat type coercion on either
the telic or the agentiveroles of the object argumentof
the verb maybe no longer possible whenthat object is
moved in subject position (See (Pnstejovsky and
Bouillon 94) for a study of the semantics of Begin). We
cannot howeverdraw any general conclusion from the
aboveexample.. The relations betweencontexts and the
possibility of applying type coercion seemto be very
complex and related to ’deep’ semantic issues of
predicates and to the relation they have with their
arguments.It is, for example,perfectly correct to say:
Le /ilm cow~nce,
wherea~.
* Le livrecommence.
This difference maybe due to the fact that the projection
of a film is a well-defined event, with a precise
beginning, thnfion and end, whereasfor a bookwe don’t
knowexactly what kind of event it is related to and what
its exact duration is. According to (Pustejovsky and
Bouillon 94) the rejection of a form like Le livre
commence
is due to the telicity of the event taken by the
complement(book). This hypothesis sounds reasonable,
but still remainsto be characterizedin moredepth.
33"pc coercion on the formal or constitutive roles
seems to be less sensitive to context variations. In
particular, type coercionon subjects are not sensitive to
context variations. Similarly, type coercion on agentive
or relic roles of the subject does not seemto he sensitive
156
In this document,we have proposed a more declarative
reformulation of verb semantic classes as defined by B.
Levin, based on the notion of syntactic contexLWehave
applied these ideas to the construction of a lexical
knowledgebase of about 2000verbs in French.
Next. we have shownthat the notion of semanticclass
is a very strong criteria for organizingthe semanticsof
verbs (and of predicates, moregenerally). Verbsen-,antlc
classes
canalsobeusedto specify the contents of Qualia
roles in the Generative Lexicon and to restrict the
application of coacionto appmpriatccases, linguistically
motic~ted.
This paper contributes to the specification of what a
word-seuseis and howits boundariescan be practically
defined. Thisspecificationallowsfor a certain flexibility
in the definitionof a ’sense’; it also specifiesits diffm~,nt
syntactic uses.
Finally, this workis a contributionto the definition of
Qualiastructures andto the practical use of type shifting
on a large scale. Defining precise methodsfor writing
Qnalia structures on a large scale and for controlling the
power of type shifting remain indeed largely open
problems.Theydeserve a lot of attention since they are
probably two of the main comerstones of the Generative
Lexiconprinciples. Their study is a necessarycondition
to the practical use of the GenerativeLexiconin ’real"
applications.
Acknowledgements
I amvery grateful mJamesPustejovsky, Federica Busa,
and PalmiraMarrafafor discussions on previous versions
of this work, which helped improvingthe ideas and the
results
presented
here.
Bibliography
Pugeault, E. Suint-Dizier, P., Monteil, M.G.,
KnowledgeExtraction from Texts: a method for
extractingpredicate-argument
structuresin texts, in
prec. Coling94. Kyoto.1994.
Pustejovsky.J.. The GenerativeLexicon, journal of
Computational
Linguistics, 1993.
Pustejov~cy.J., Bouillon.P., Onthe properrole of
coercion
in semantic
typing,
inpro¢.
Coling94,
Kyoto,1994.
Saint-Dizier, P.. A DenotationalSemanticsfor Type
Coercionin the Generative
lw.xicon,undersubmission,
1995.
Dau~ze,
S.,Uneclassification
s~nantiquo
desverbes
dufrancuis
bas~
surlaclassification
deB.Levin,
research
ret~xt,
IRIT,
1994.
Daub~ze,
S,,Saint-Dizier,
P.,Marrafa,
P.,
Constructing
a knowledge
baseforrepresentin
8 the
&enera/semant/cJ
of verbs, undersubmission,
1995.
Jeckendoff,R., Seman~c
Structures,MITPress, 1990.
Grimshaw,
J., Argument
Structure, M1TPress, 1990.
Levin,
B.. English
Verb
Classes
andAlternations,
the
University
ofChicago
Press.
1993.
Sampleverbs of the class considered
(,gram)
accorder,
acheter
r ass/xner
r a//ouer
r aar/buer
(Fovide)
fournir,livrer, prac~er,servir
( ~ ) accept, acque~, recevoir,aaendre, ob~nir
(withdraw)
enlewr
r extraire,~terr placer
r prele~r
{read)life, d~clamer,
dicter,narrer,pr~cher,
r~citer
{talk) bamrder~r.ow/r~c~’,
papoter, ar~rumenter
(refxxt) annoncer,
conmumiquer
r rapporter,reveler
{ask)demander,
qmbnander,
implorer,soUiciter
( debe~
) dt~tre,
disc~r,marchander,
n~~ocier
(orsa~.e)or/~aniser,renouveler
r s~ucturer
(amuse)
amuser,
charmer,
absourdir,
captiver
(please)
pre, pre,a,er,
Telic role
Ol
Agentive
role
Ol
Ol
Ol
Ol
Ol
01,
O1
Ol
Ol
Ol
Ol
Ol
Ol
Ol
O1
S
S
Ol
S, Ol
S~Ol
S~ Ol
S
S
S
S
S
(admire)
admirer
adorer,
aimer
envier,
hal~,
~n/.rer
Ol
r
r
ST O1
(lmtm)accdlerer
r ac~,er,hater,presser
(_d~)aiourne
SI Ol
Grer~ure,repousser
r retarder
q~nefit) blur, profiter
ST O1
S
{conln’bute)
compter,
contr/buer,influer, d~pendre
(save)Ipargner,rentab//iserr ~conom/ser.
amort/r
(change)
c~ger,transformer~
m~tamo~hoser S
[unpmve)
aO’ermir
arMliorer,
redresser S
, amoindrir,
(cftfferen~,..)
differencier,
discriminer,
distin~uer
(refund)
~dommager,
indemniser,rembourser,
payer
Constitutire role
ST 02
ST 02
ST 02
S, O1~02
S, Ol
S, Ol
S, 02
ST 02
S, 02
S
S
T Ol
S, Ol
S, O1
S
T O1
S, Ol
S, O1
S
T Ol
S, O1
Formal
role
S, 02
S~ 02
$02
S~ O1~02
S, Ol
St Ol
St 02
ST 02
S, 02
S
S~ Ol
S~ Ol
St O1
ST O1
S~ O1
S, O1
S~ O1
ST O1
Ol
Ol
S
S
Ol
Ol
S
S
Annex: Sampleof verb classesand appropriateness of type coercion
w.r.t. Qualia roles of the arguments
1st column:between
backersis an Englishtranslationof the mostrepresentativeverbof the class
2-Sthcolumns:S = subject,O1= objectl, 02 = object2of ’basic’ forms.
157