Semantic Variation of the Verb "Essere"

3rd International LABLITA Workshop
in Corpus Linguistics
Semantic Variation of the
Verb "Essere" in Spoken
Italian
Corpus Driven Research vs
Generative Taxonomy of Copular
Sentences
Florence
2008, June 4-5th
Alessandro Panunzi
LABLITA
Agenda
ƒ Primary data from corpus
ƒ Theoretical frameworks
ƒ Corpus analysis
ƒ Comparison with generative grammar
ƒ Variation structure
ƒ Conclusions
Objectives
ƒ To provide a description of real uses that
is able to:
ƒ account for the semantic variation of the
verb “essere”
ƒ be observational adequate
ƒ extract from corpus analysis evidences for
linguistic theory (corpus based and corpus
driven perspectives)
PRIMARY DATA
Primary data: occurrences
and corpus design
Inform. Inform. Formal
dial.
monol. dialog.
tokens 102564
Formal
monol.
Media Teleph.
TOTAL
50721
24383
42944
60466
15776
296854
essere
5101
2352
1101
1854
2742
681
13831
%
4.97%
4.64%
4.52%
4.32%
4.53%
4.32%
4.66%
General structure of the
taxonomy
ƒ Verbal uses: fixed structure
ƒ subject + “essere” + complement
Uses and percentages
Incidence on the verbal
utterances in spoken Italian
Variation over the copus
design
100,00%
90,00%
80,00%
44,86%
36,82%
27,71%
19,18%
70,00%
34,36%
60,00%
40,19%
50,00%
40,00% 34,21%
30,00%
20,00%
10,00%
36,90%
4,82%
5,25%
3,89%
41,64%
3,60%
17,32%
0,00%
informaledialogico
22,39%
26,85%
formaledialogico
informalemonologico
formalemonologico
non verbali
altri - verbali
+ esserci
essere
THEORETICAL
FRAMEWORKS
Paradigms of analisys
ƒ Classical studies
ƒ Aristotles, Boethius, Abelard, Port Royal Grammar
ƒ Logical tadition
ƒ Frege, Russel, Strawson, Donnellan
ƒ Cognitive semantics
ƒ Gruber, Jackendoff
ƒ Generative grammar
ƒ Akmajan, Higgins, Heggie, Moro
The copula
ƒ Definitions of the functional and semantic
value of the verb “essere” in classical studies:
ƒ the “sign of the time” within the predication
structure (Aristotle)
ƒ the predicational “link” within the judgment act
(Scholasticism, Port Royal)
The verb “essere” is seen as the lexical element
corresponding to the concept of copula
Frege and the identity
ƒ Focus on the polysemous nature of the verb
“essere” (Frege 1892a, b):
ƒ Copula
ƒ The morning star is a planet
ƒ Identity predicate
ƒ The morning star is Venus / the evening star
Two kind of relations
ƒ Distinction of two completely different kind
of relations:
ƒ The “falling of an object under a concept”
(extensional relation)
ƒ An “equivalence” between two distinct ways to
identify the same object (intensional relation)
The post-copular NP
ƒ The kind of relation can be detected though
the semantic value of the post-copular NP:
ƒ predicative (x is “a planet”)
Æ “essere” = copula
ƒ referential (x is “Venus” / “the evening star”)
Æ “essere” = identity predicate
Gruber hypothesis
ƒ Semantic basis for the verb “to be”:
ƒ LOCATIVE RELATION (Gruber 1976)
ƒ Jackendoff (1983) adopts this proposal and
uses it to explain the whole semantic
variation of the verb
Presence of the same thematic structure in all the
semantic fields of “to be”
Basic semantic value
ƒ The same relational core-meaning is
extended over different semantic domains,
on the basis of theta-role assignment
ƒ In its whole semantic variation, the verb “to
be” enstablish a thematic relation on the
locative basis
Jackendoff extension - 1
Semantic
Domain
Spatial
Temporal
Possessive
Theme
Object
Event or
State
Object
Object of
Reference
Relation type
(to be)
Example
Place
Localization of the
theme in the place
of reference
John is in the
room
Time
Localization of the
event/state
expressed by the
theme in the time
of reference
The meeting is
at 6.00 PM
Object
Possessive relation
between the
theme and the
object of reference
(as a localization)
The doll is
yours
Jackendoff extension - 2
Semantic
Domain
Identificational
Theme
Object
Object of Relation type
Reference (to be)
Type /
Property
the relations “to be a
case” of a class or “to
have a property” play
the role of the
localization
Example
Elise is a pianist
The light is red
ƒ The value of essere as a copula is considered as a
case of the semantic variation of the verb within
the cognitive space of the “identification”
Specificity of the copular
value
ƒ The complement within the copular uses is
a type (or a property)
ƒ it lacks of referentiality, therefore it cannot be
an “object of reference”
ƒ As a consequence, it is not possible to
assign a θ role to the copular complement
ƒ by definition, theta roles are assigned to
[+referential] elements
Specificity of the identity
predicate
ƒ The complement of the identity predicate is
obviously referential, but it lacks of an explicit
theta role
ƒ cfr. agent/experient, theme/patient, location,
possessor, goal, source, instrumental…
ƒ Its role within the identity predication is to provide
the second term of reference (in terms of Sinn)
within the specific intensional relation established
by the verb “essere”
ƒ this not foresees any thematic role assignment
CORPUS ANALYSIS
Semantic classes of
variation: the matrix
“essere” class
of variation
COPULA
[referentiality]
Semantic
features
of the
[thematic
complement
role]
PREDIC.
IDENTIF.
*
(locative)
-
+
+
-
-
-
+
+
Heuristic consequences
ƒ The matrix makes possible to decide to what
class a single instance of the corpus belongs
by analyzing the semantic features of the
complement (equivalent and positive
features)
ƒ The classification of the uses in the corpus
allows extracting from the data significant
grammatical features, in order to properly
describe the verbal variation of “essere”
General structure of the
taxonomy (revised)
Percentages of verbal
uses
Quantitative results
ƒ Reduced percentage of marked variation
ƒ marked variation is estimated to cover more than 50%
of the high frequency action verbs (Panunzi & Moneglia
2004)
ƒ High percentage of identificative uses
ƒ consistency of such a use
ƒ Quantitative prominence of copular uses with
respect to predicative/locative ones
COMPARISON WITH
GENERATIVE GRAMMAR
Copular clauses taxonomy
in Generative Grammar
ƒ Main distinction among two different types of
copular sentences (Akmajan 1970)
ƒ predicational clauses, in which the post-copular NP is
not referential, and it constitutes a proper predicate
Carl is bald
ƒ specificational clauses, in which the post-copular NP is
properly referential,
referential and it specifies an individual entity
my best friend is Carl
Higgins referential
taxonomy (simplified)
NP1
NP2
predicational
Referential
Predicational
specificational
Superscriptional
Specificational
ƒ In the proposed taxonomy, a specific class is then
contituted by identity statements (“The Slim” is Carl), that
roughly corresponds to the ones discussed by Frege; in
this case, both the NPs have a referential value
identity statement
Referential
Referential
Criticism
ƒ Ad hoc referential values
ƒ es. superscriptional
ƒ The taxonomy criteria take into account
both the referential value of the subject and
the one of the complement
ƒ referential type of the subject has no
correspondence to the semantic value of the
predicate
Inverse copular sentences
ƒ These proposal led to the hypotesis that
specificational structures are copular clauses in
which the NP1 (in subject position) is the actual
predicate, and the NP2 (in complement position)
is the actual subject:
ƒ [John]subj is [the teacher]pred
ƒ [the teacher]pred is [John]subj
ƒ In brief, specificational clauses are considered as
inverse copular sentences
(Blom & Daalder 1977; Verheudg 1990; Moro 1997, Mikkelsen 2005)
Copular clauses: shared
deep structure (Heggie 1988)
Predicational clauses:
shallow structure
Specificational clauses:
shallow structure (Moro 1997)
Theoretical consequences
ƒ Counter-evidence against the common
assumption that the relation between the NP
and the VP that are bound in the clause
structure determines the grammatical functions
of Subject and Predicate (Moro)
ƒ it deals with the general theory of clause syntax
ƒ Further interpretations place these facts at the
level of the information structure
ƒ (cfr. Mikkelsen 2005)
Heuristic consequences
ƒ Crucial role of the NP in the “subject”
position in determining the type of the
copular clause
ƒ This perspective gets rid of the identified
semantic distintions
ƒ Identificational uses
ƒ Predicative-locative uses
VARIATION STRUCTURE
Lines of variation
Type of use
Semantic value of essere Line of variation
Copular
Property attribution
(extensional relation)
Type of the property
Identificative
Identificative relation
between different
referential expressions
(intensional relation)
ontological class of the
entity to which the
expressions refer
Predicative
Locative relation
(locative basis) (relazione tematica)
cognitive domain within
which the relation between
the theme and the object of
reference is set up
Predicative uses
(locative basis)
ƒ Spatial localization
ƒ *IAS: qui / siamo alla foce del fiume //
[here / we are at the mouth of the river]
ƒ Temporal localization
ƒ *NON: sì / la [/] la fiera / l' è il secondo martedì di luglio //
[yes / the fair is on the second tuesday of July]
ƒ Possess relation (as localization)
ƒ *LID: questi / erano della mamma //
[these ones / belonged to my mother]
Other uses (corpus-driven)
ƒ Benefactive relation
ƒ *ANT: è per la gente che si deve divertire //
[It is for the people who want to have fun //]
ƒ Causative relation
ƒ *CLA: non so se è per questione di soldi / di interessi / per
questione di culture forse diverse //
[I don’t know if it is because of money / of profit / because of
different cultures //]
ƒ “Co-localizzation”:
ƒ *ROS: eravamo sempre con Adriana / e il suo bambino //
[we always were with Adriana and her child]
Sematic variation of
copular uses
PROPERTY TYPE
EXAMPLE
Quality
'un è mica brutto //
[he isn’t ugly at all]
Class
[...] gl'era un falegname / gl'era un artigiano //
[he was a joiner / he was a craftsman ]
Quantity
gli arcani minori e quelli maggiori / sono 52 /
[the minor arcana and the major ones / are 52]
Measure
era 95 chili / quando ci si sposò / i mi marito //
[my husband was 95 kilos / when we married]
Comparison
mio fratello è così //
[my brother is this way]
Judgment
è giusto e corretto / che parli l’Istituto Superiore di
Sanità / […] //
[it is right and correct / that the ISS…]
Internal variation of
copular uses
ƒ Different uses correspond to a single and
primary semantic core
ƒ Internal line of variation:
ƒ type of the property assigned by the copular
relation
Identificative uses
ƒ subj – essere – NP[+definite]
ƒ *ANN: che lui è il presidente del Sunia //
[that he is the president of Sunia]
ƒ *ZIA: l' abbraccia gli fa / Attilio / sono io il fiorentino //
[he hugs him he say / Attilio / I am the Florentine]
ƒ *CUC: il mercato è questo //
[the market is this]
ƒ *VAL: cioè / la mia sede definitiva / è Piombino //
[I mean / my final location / is Piombino]
Ontological types of the entities
in equivalence relation
ƒ Places
ƒ *LIA: e qui è San_Gottardo / eh //
[and here is San Gottardo / eh]
ƒ Times
ƒ *MAX: perché qui è il ‘59 //
[because it was 1959]
ƒ Events
ƒ *ELA: che / era la volta che tu cantavi / …
[that / it was the time that you were singing / …]
Equivalence between entities of
the Event ontological level
ƒ Nominalizations
ƒ *GUI: l' occasione è stata che / […] sono andato a fare
i' camionista //
[the occasion was that / […] I became a truck driver]
ƒ Pseudo-clefts
ƒ *ANT: quello che non accetti / è che ti giudichi un
deficiente //
[what you don’t accept / is that an idiot judges you]
ƒ *LOR: la cosa che ha fatto incazzare è stata questa //
[the thing that made me angry was this one]
CONCLUSIONS
Semantic classification of
corpus instances
ƒ Possibility to produce a corpus-based
classification of the semantic values of the
verb essere:
ƒ extensional relation (copula)
ƒ intensional relation (identification)
ƒ thematic relation (localization)
Predictability of semantic
values
ƒ The different semantic values of the verb essere are
predictable on the basis of equivalent and
positive features of the complement:
ƒ copular “essere”: lack of referentiality in the complement
ƒ identificative “essere”: referentiality of the complement,
without association with a thematic role
ƒ predicative-locative “essere”: referentiality of the
complement, in association with an explicit thematic
role
Taxonomy consistency
ƒ Descriptive criterion
ƒ the variation perspective assures the identification of
types which mirror real uses
ƒ Consistency of the taxonomy
ƒ productivity of the classes and quantitative (external)
consistency of the classification
ƒ internal consistency of the classes of variation,
identified by specific lines of variation
Comparison with Generative
Grammar taxonomy
ƒ Lack of semantic representation
ƒ autonomy of each semantic field of variation
ƒ Lack of observational adequacy
ƒ it makes impossible to explain the lines of
variation found by means of the corpus driven
analysis
References
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