Issues in Relating Syntax and Semantics 
Daniel JURAFSKY 
Berkeley Artificial Intelligence Research 
Computer Science Division 
University of California at Berkeley 
Berkeley, CA 94720 
1. Introduction 
The design of a natural language understanding system is depen- 
dent on a rich and structured knowledge representation. Much recent 
work in computational and cognitive linguistics has focused on 
representations for syntactic and morphological knowledge. Similarly, 
the knowledge representation paradigm has proposed many conceptual 
tools for the representation of semantic knowledge. Combining the two 
in one system, a system for representing linguistic knowledge, is the 
essential next task for computational linguistics. This paper will 
explore some issues which arise in the foundational design of such a 
representational system. In using the fundamental building block of 
the grammatical construction (Fillmore 1987), I will reanalyze tradi- 
tional problems like the passive construction and dative "movement", 
showing how a "construction" solution avoids common problems in 
moi'e traditional grammatical theories. In addition, I will suggest how 
use of an inheritance hierarchy can replace other linguistic tools for 
abstraction like lexieal rules, while others can be captured by appealing 
to shared semantic structures. I will also touch on the issues of lexical- 
ization in theories of grammar - whether information is redundantly 
specified in the lexicon. 
2. Representation of Syntactic and Semantic Knowledge 
A complete and explicit description of a language, a grammar, 
may be represented in many ways. Rule-based descriptions, for exam- 
ple, describe knowledge of language as knowledge of a set of rules. In 
contrast, traditional descriptions in the pre-generative framework 
assume that knowledge of language can be expressed by a knowledge 
of structures. Fillmore (1987) proposes a return to the traditional 
notion of the grammatical construction. Construction grammar 
aims at describing the grammar of a language directly in 
terms of a collection of grammatical constructions each of 
which represents a pairing of a syntactic pattern with a 
meaning structure...(p. 3) 
Certainly this approach is standard for the representation of lexi- 
cal knowledge. But extending this approach to larger constructions 
(the passive construction, the subject-object construction) means blur- 
ing the traditional boundaries between the lexicon and syntactic 
knowledge, a view also called for in Beeker (1976), and Wilensky and 
Arens (1980). In the construction view, then, idioms, for example, are 
simply constructions with less variability than other, more productive 
constructions. 
Given that a grammar is a large collection of these pairs, how are 
they to be represented7 Here we turn to insights from the field of 
knowledge /epresentation. The fundamental metaphor chosen as a 
foundation for a theory of grammar-meaning correspondences is that of 
the hierarchical stratified network. The use of inheritance hierarchies 
for semantic knowledge is well-established. Less common, however, is 
its use for syntactic knowledge (Although see Flickenger, Pollard and 
Wasow (1985) for inheritence in the lexicon). Fewer still are systems 
which have used a structured inheritance network as a representational 
*Thanks to Nigel Ward and Robert Wilea~ky. This research was sponsored in part by 
the Dofe~e Advance Research Projects Ageacy (DOD), Arpa Ordex No. 4871, moni- 
tored by the Space end Naval Warfare Systems Command lmder Contract No. 
N00039-84.C-0089. 
formalism for both syntactic and semantic knowledge. Notable excep- 
tions are PSI-KLONE (Bobrow and Webber 1980), as well Jacobs's 
(1985) ACE/KING system. 
The economy and elegance derived from having a grammar 
defined by a collection of structures defined with a single formalism is 
a strong argument for this type of unified representation. But this 
approach, grammatical constructions represented in a unified 
knowledge-representation formalism, has a number of additional 
advantages: 
Use of a single representation scheme allows the correspom 
dence between syntax and semantics to be represented in its 
own tight. 
The two types of knowledge can be used together in natural 
language understanding or generation, thus aiding the 
development of truly integrated understanding or generation 
mechanisms. 
Using the same theoretical mechanisms to account for gen- 
eralizan'ons in beth syntactic and semantic phenomena 
encourages the development of unified treatments of 
linguistic abstraction. Thus, for example, structured inheri° 
tance or other abstraction mechanisms can be used as a 
replacement for syntactic roles, lexical redundancy roles, 
and other earlier linguistic tools to capture generalizations. 
And finally, constructs that were originally motivated for 
the semantic domain, constructs such as prototypes and 
category theory can be applied to syntactic knowledge, fol- 
lowing Lakoff (1987) and his arguments for cognitive gram- 
mar. 
The explicit pairing of every syntactic form with a semantic 
one is extremely useful for such understanding techniques 
as "rule-by-rule" parsing. 
It is interesting to note that the two main conceptual primitives of 
this approach, the doubly articulated construction and the semantic net- 
work, both arise directly from some of the earliest work in modem 
linguistics, indeed, both are clearly expressed in Saussure's Cours. A 
construction is precisely a sign in the sense of Saussure. It consists of a 
syntactic and a semantic component, the correlates of his signifiant and 
signifi'e. As for the semantic network, the idea that a theory of meaning 
could best be expressed by describing the relations among concepts is 
simply Sauasure's (1966/1916) claim that "...each linguistic term 
derives its value from its opposition to all the other terms." (p. 88) 
2.1. Domains of Knowledge 
I will refer to the two domains in the network which describe syn- 
tactic and semantic knowledge simply as tl~ Syntactic Domain and 
the Semantic Domain. The semantic domain includes categorization 
of the lexical item's semantics with respect to the prototypical ontolog- 
ical primitives (as an Action, Thing, ete). If the construction is headed 
by a valence-taking type, such as most Actions, the choice of lexical 
entry will constrain the choice of case roles for each of the consti- 
tuents. Each valence-bearing type in the lexicon has a case frame - a 
set of case roles such as agent, patient, or instrument, which it sub- 
categorizes (Fillmore 1968). Also assueiated with each entry is an 
image-seheme (Lakoff 1987) such as the COrCI'AIN~R Schema, or the 
PART-WHOLE Schema. In addition, a lexieal entry is linked to a frame 
278 
\[ Theft"~'ame 
\[ Thief\] 
E o~er \] 
\[ Goods \] 
l~¥ame 
Domain 
.... -L_____~.L~_3~ - ..... ~_ Lex r~ob J 
Semantic Syntactic 
Domain Domain 
Figure 1 - Sketch of Syntax-Semantics Relation 
(itt the sense of Fillmore 1982). A frame describes the background 
constituents and concepts necessary for framing the lexical-semantic 
definition of a concept. Thus a lexieal entry is linked to a frame which 
it evokes in the understanding process, and which helps in associating 
and organizing concept in the generation process. 
The representation of the subcategorized constituent elements of 
syntactic patterns at the Syntactic domain is done by grammatical rela- 
tions such as Subject, Object or Complement. 
Grammatical Mapping links relate the Semantic and Syntactic 
domains, mapping the actual syntactic realization to each of the seman- 
tic constituents of the frame - specifying which constituent maps to the 
syntactic sul~ject, object, and obliques. Following is a sketch of how 
some of these elements might be related. The grammatical mapph~g 
between the semantic entry for "rob" and its syntactic realization have 
been simplilied for expository purposes - a fuller description will be 
suggested when the passive construction is discussed. 
3. Accounting for Some Traditional Problems 
Above: I sketched an outline of a representation for semantic and 
grammatiea~l knowledge. In this section I give some suggestions 
toward a more explicit characterization of the representation. I do this 
in the context of discussing some traditional linguistic problems which 
provide insight into and constraints on the design of a representational 
scheme. 
3.1. Passlvq~ 
The passive construction in English has been analyzed as a 
transformational rule, a lexieal rule, a change in grammatical relations. 
In each of these views, an active sentence like (1) and a passive like (2) 
(1) Marlowe mixed that perfectly loathsome martini. 
(2) That perfectly loathsome martini was mixed by Marlowe. 
are related by some sort of rule. Even in the" lexieal theories such as 
LFG, the passive and active lexical items are.related by lexical rules 
which makq, ~ ~eference to grammatical relations and other syntactic 
notions. Thas what these views have in common is an attempt to cap- 
ture a generalization in language by appealing only to the syntactic 
component c~f the language. 
In a construction-type theory, one can appeal to the semantic 
component ~o capture the requisite generalization. Thus the derived 
predicate adjective (ie "passivized" verb) is related to the verb it mor- 
phologicaily resembles, by sharing the same argument structure and 
ontological category at the Lexleal.Semantie domain. 
But how exactly does the meaning differ? And at what level do 
we express the productivity of the passive construction? For example, 
in a lexical theory like LFG, the passive is a redundancy rule that 
applies to transitive verbs in the lexicon to produce new lexical entries 
with passive subcategorization frames. But as Rice (1987) points out, 
the criteria by which the passive can be used depend on much more 
information than can be stored in the lexicon. For example, the differ- 
ence between (3) and (4) is not present in the lexical entry for sleep. 
(3) This bed has been slept in again by that flea-bitten dog. 
(4) *The living loom was slept in by Mary. 
In other words, the criteria for what makes an acceptable passive 
include more lban just the subeategorization information of the verb. 
Rice gives many such examples, and argues that that the passive con~ 
stmetions makes use of a notion of transitivity which makes reference 
to the entire conceptualization that an utterance realizes. 
A definition of the passive construction would have to include 
some characterization of the following constraints: 
SEMANTIC FUNCFION: 
- Focus on the most affected participant in the scene. 
- Construe the verbal process as a property or modifier of this 
participant. 
SYNTACTIC FORM: 
- Realize this participant as the subject. 
- Realize the verb (in the past participle form) as a predicate 
:adjective. 
Note that "most affected participant" must be defined with respect 
to the prototypical notion of transitivity. Additionally, the realization 
of the passive participle as a predicate adjective motivates its use with 
the copula (or with got - note that adjectives can also use this verb with 
a change-of-state reading). 
This description of the passive construction has been described in 
such a way that it can be combined with other constructions in a model 
of language use. In other words, where redundancy rules in a lexical 
theory may describe an abstraction which has little to do with a pefforo 
mance model, here a construction is not present unless it is used. 
Redundancy-type abstraction can be capture by use of the abstraction 
hierarchy. 
Thus in generation, for example, the speaker might choose a 
frame of participants, a verbal predicate wlfieh assigns thematic roles, 
and choose to focus ou a participant which happens to be assigned a 
non-agentive role, or rather one which would prototypically be realized 
as a direct object. Then the passive construction might be chosen as 
one construction to include in the utterance. Such a model is used by 
McKeown (1985). She note the use of the passive construction to focus 
on a semantic patient when answering question about missiles, produc- 
ing "Missiles are carried by water-going vehicles and aircraft..." (p 78). 
Similarly, in a parsing system, the presence of the passive con- 
279 
stmction would indicate the focus on the subject, while the verbal root 
would enable reconstruction of the thematic roles assigned to the argu- 
ments. 
3.2. Redundant Information in the Lexicon - Passive Lexlcal 
Entries 
Although this representation of the passive as a construction 
which can be combined with other constructions in a model of use is 
general and elegant, should we still redundantly specify the passivized 
versions of verbs in the lexicon? This relates to the difficult question of 
when rules are simply redundancy rules, and when they are necessary 
for a theory. Two arguments for "compiling out" the lexicon, listing 
every entry redundantly, are given by Bresnan. The first is to avoid 
intricate feeding relations among rules. As I show later when I discuss 
the relation of the Passive and Dative constructions, this can be avoided 
by describing constructions with the understanding that they are to be 
embedded in a theory of use. The second is the now classic evidence 
against the derivational theory of complexity (Fodor, Bever, and GaITeR 
1974). The evidence that the understanding process is no longer for 
passive sentences than for active ones was strong evidence against a 
traditional transformational model Of course, this can also be evi- 
dence against a derivational lexical model, if the passive lexical entry is 
derived from the active one by productive lexical rules. But this argu- 
ment does not apply to the construction grammar model, for the passive 
sentence is not derived in any fashion from the active one, but from an 
underlying semantic conceptualization, iin the same way as the active 
one. 
However, there are certainly cases where even the most steadfast 
proponent of syntactic predictability from semantics must agree that 
the lexicon must include information that might be redundant. Indeed, 
as Lakoff (1987) points out "Our individual grammars may not be 
structured optimally... That is, a speaker may learn certain construc- 
tions by rote rather than fitting them into his grammar as a whole." If 
such lexicalizing of knowledge is necessary in a theory of grammar, we 
must have a way of representing it when it does occur. If, for example, 
the English lexicon does represent the passive predicate "mixed" (as 
opposed to simply including the passive construction and the semar~tic 
argument structure for Mixing-Action) how would it be represented? 
Roughly, using the inhetitence hierarchy to instantiate a new node in 
• the lexical-semantic domain of the network, and then having it multiply 
inherit from both Mixing-Action and Passive. Of course each of these 
concepts, Mixing-Action and Passive would have to be further fleshed 
out - Passive according to the construction specification sketched 
above, and Mixing-Action with some sort of image-schematic notions 
(Lakoff 1987 and Langacker 1987). But then the new concept 
Passive-Mixing-Actinn would inherit the conceptual structure of both 
of these. 
For example, the ontological Event concerning Marlowe and that 
martini, and its two syntactic realizations, can be represented as in Fig- 
ure 2. For clarity's sake I have represented the two different syntactic 
realizations on either side of the semantics. 
Note that using structured inheritance networks allows the 
Subject-Agent mapping for Bivalent Verbs to be inherited from the 
more general Verb-Action mapping. Future directions for the represen- 
tation system include the ability to assign preferences to different map- 
pings, allowing as representation of the agency hierarchy, and other 
non-binary phenomena. 
Talmy (1985) notes that just as the passive is a productive way of 
forming adjectives from semantic Actions, there are also many lexical- 
ized adjectival forms of verbs, forms not derived from such a produc- 
tive construction. Here there is no choice but to use the lexicalized ver- 
sion of the representation, as a general productive mapping does not 
exist. Figure 3 shows an example of how such a lexiealized representa- 
tion might be characterized. In section 3.3 I will discuss the represen- 
tation of similar such non-productive derived forms, non-productive 
280 
derived nominals. 
3.3. Dative 
The essential issue in the design of a grammatical representation 
is how the representation is to be used. In other words, how construcp 
tions are to be combined in generation, or how they are to be used in 
understanding. These issues have not tended to receive a lot of atten- 
tion, but a few famous construction-combining puzzles exist. One such 
well-known example is the combination of the Passive with the Dative 
Shift. (or Dative Movement, or Dative Alternation). The dative shift, 
first noted in the early 60's, involves verbs such as give which seem to 
allow two different structuring of its complement arguments: 
(5) The bartender gave a martini to Bond. 
(6) The bartender gave Bond a martini. 
A similar or related rule produces such sentences as (7) 
(7) I baked my mother a cake. 
In a lexical grammar, such as LFG, these rules are lexical redun- 
dancy rules which apply to some verbs like "give" and produce new 
lexical entries. In the new entries, the argument which fills the Goal 
thematic role is realized with the grammatical relation of direct object, 
while the Theme role takes the Second Object grammatical reiation. 
However, many recent semantic studies of these Dative and 
related examples show that there are strong semantic criteria to the 
application of the Dative constmction~ (Greene 1974, Oehrle 1975, 
Baker 1979, Langacker 1986). These studies have shown that the feli- 
citous use of the construction involves the Goal or Benefacted argu- 
ment ending up with some sort of possession of or control over the 
Theme. Langacker (1986) notes: 
(8) I sent a walrus to Antarctica. 
(9) ?I sent Antarctica a walrus. 
(10) I sent the zoo a walrus. 
Here (9) is deviant because it is difficult to place a continent in the role 
of a possessor. 
(11) I clear the floor for Bill. 
(12) ?I cleared Bill the floor. 
(13) I cleared Bill a place to sleep on the floor. 
Similarly, (13) makes it much easier to conceive of the area of the 
floor coming under Bill's control than does (12). 
The point of these examples is similar to the one made by Rice 
(1987) and noted above. The semantic constraints on when a Dative 
Direct Object can be used can not be expressed in the lexicon - the 
difference between (12) and (13) depends on a constmal of the entire 
utterance conceptualization. Thus the Dative Direct Object construc- 
tion is stated as a construction in the grammar whose combination with 
specific lexieal items comes up only in use. A rough characterization 
of some aspects of this construction might be: 
SEMANTIC FUNCTION: 
- Focus on the affectedness of the Goal (or Beneficiary). 
- Do so by emphasizing the final control or possession the Goal 
has over the Theme. 
SYNTACTIC FORM: 
- Realize the Goal as the Direct Object 
- Realize the Theme as the Second Object. 
Given the idea of this semantic constraint, and our representation 
of the passive constmetinn, we are ready to explain a more complex 
problem, that of utterances with both Dative Alternation and Passive 
constructions, such as (14) or (15). Of course, in the transformation 
paradigm such examples were handled by rule ordering - if the Dative 
Movement rule moving "Bond" to object position took place before the 
Passive role, a structure like (15) resulted, otherwise one like (14). 
(14) Bond was given a martini by the bartender. 
A 
Figure 2 - Passive and Active Actions 
Figure 3 - Passive and Deverbal Adjectives 
(15) A martini was given to Bond by file bartender. 
tlowever in a construction-based fmmalism, the interaction 
between the constructions can be predicted by examining the semantics 
of the constructions. In tile Dative rule, the Goal participant must be 
focused on as having some sort of control over the Theme. The point is 
that what i~ means for a Goal participant to be affected in a Goal- 
transfer scenalio is for the Goal to be transferred possession or control 
of tile Theme. 
For different types of scenarios (or Idealized Cognitive Model 
(Lakoff 1987)), then, transitivity means different things. Rice (1987) 
takes note of this when she proposes three cognitive domains with 
separate tra,lsitive event prototypes: the physical, mental, and social 
domains. 
For example, for Locative-transfer scenarios, what it means to be 
affected by the action is somewhat different. As many writers have 
noted (anlong them Anderson 1971 and Foley and Van Valin 1984), in 
the (b) sentences the locative arguments (the truck and the wall) can be 
understood as completely affected by the verbal action. In other words, 
the truck completely filled with hay, the wall completely covered with 
paint. The (a) sentences do not have this reading. 
For example, 
(16a) Bill loaded hay on the truck. 
(16b)Bill loaded file track with hay. 
(17a) Harry sprayed paint on the wall. 
(17b)Harry sprayed the wall with paint. 
Thus "affected" here means something about completion. Of 
course, this is not surprising. Both Rice (1987) and Hopper and 
Thompson (1980) do list telic actions as more prototypicaUy transitive 
than atelic ones. But the important point is that what it means to be 
affected by an action is different for different action-scenarios. 
Given some such theory of affectedness in transfer-scenarios, we 
281 
can say that the Dative construction is used to mark the affectedness of 
the Goal in this way. But an affected object is exactly the sot~ of'parti- 
cipant the the Passive is us~ tor focusing on. Thus sentences like (14) 
and (15) can be characterized simply by whether or not they use certain 
constructions. Sentence (15) is not lormed by syntactic feeding rules, 
but by the combination in language use of these two constructions. 
3.4. Nominalizations 
The correspondence between syntax and semantics is encoded by 
mapping relations which link groups of syntactic m~d semantic cortsti- 
tuents in the network. To take a lexical example, the semantic primi- 
tive 'idog" might be related to the syntactic entity which instantiates the 
noun "dog" by one of these relations. Likewise, more complex con-- 
structions are mapped between the syntax and semantics. So, for 
example, the syntactic construction \[Adj Noun\] might be related to a 
numher of semantic constructions, specifying the various prototypical 
ways of combining the semantic inforlnation associated with adjectives 
and nouns. A complete tbeory of this correspondence would involve 
showing how every syntactic construction was the realization of some 
sem,'mtic object. But clearly fire appropriate syntactic construction to 
begin out investigations is the lexical category. Note that a lexical 
category is a grammatical construction like any other, differing only in 
the very frequency of its use. 
It has long been observed that a rough correspondence can be 
drawn between lcxical categories and an ontological partitioning of the 
workl. Everyone is familiar with the traditional grammarians' 
definition of a noun as a word representing a "person, place or tiring". 
Naturally, the exceptions to this simplistic analysis are abundant. For 
example, nominalizations such as destruction secm to be more related 
to actions than to "things." But the many exceptions to this analysis 
caused the real semantic nature of lexical categories to receive less 
attention than it deserved. As Miller and Johnson-Laird (1976) note, 
"perhaps \[traditional grammarians\] did not really mean that everything 
labeled by a noun is a concrete object; perhaps they me~mt that when 
you use a noun to label something, you tend to conceptualize it as if it 
were a concrete object (p 527)". In the spirit of this Whorfian idea that 
lexical categories reflect a set of ontological categories, the Lexical.. 
Semantic Domain includes a set of such ontological primitives as 
Events, Actions, and Things. Mapping relations in the network relate 
these primitives to syntactic constructions. In prototypical cases, like 
the noun "table", what is semantically a Thing is mapped to a consti~ 
tuent that is syntactically a noun (or more properly a noun phrase). 
Thus the lexical categories of language are the prototypical realizations 
of these underlying sernantic regularities. These "prototypical realiza- 
tions" are simply a version of what Lakoff (1987) called "central prin- 
ciples". Note that they am also similar to Chomsky's (1986) "Canoni- 
cal Structural Realizations" of semantic concepts. 
However, as each kind of ontological category can be mapped to 
different syntactic category, it is also possible to have cases of non- 
prototypical mapping. Thus what have traditionally been called pro- 
ductive nominalizafions are non-prototypical mappings between 
Actions and different types of nouns. A nominalization like John's 
destroying the city is related semantically to an an Action, but is 
mapped in form to a noun phrase. The Action "destroy" maps into the 
noun "destroying". Similarly, remember that the passive construction 
involved the reanalysis of an Action as a a predicative adjective. 
As for noun-phrase mappings, as Ross (1973) showed, there are a 
number of noun phrase constructions which are bear different relations 
to the prototypical noun phrase. He discusses eight different types of 
noun phrases which he arranges along a Nouniness Squish. These NP's 
are that-clauses, for NP to V, embedded questions, gerunds, possessive 
gerunds, action nominals, derived nominals, and Nouns. An cxaminao 
tion of the syntactic category Noun-Phrase is essential to any discus- 
sion of relations between Actions and Nouns (1 use Action here only as 
an example - of course other ontological categories like States axe 
282 
relevant as well). One of the great advantages to a unified representa~ 
lion for linguistic and conceptual knowledge is that such models as 
Lakoff's (1987) eatego~3, theories for semantics are automatically 
applicable to syntactic knowledge. 
But here I will only discuss a few of the lexical issues ilwolved in 
nominalizations, and in particular the difference between what Ross 
called "action" and "derived" nominals, or the productive and non-. 
productive nominalizations. 
For example, the verb "destroy" has two lexical nominalizations 
the productive or gerundive "destroying", and the derived or non- 
productive "destruction". The nominal use of the gerundive "destroy- 
ing" is productive in the sense that if a new verb entered the language, 
say "to xerox", the native speaker would automatically be able to speak 
about "xeroxing", 
Chomsky (1970) proposed that the relationship of these two types 
of nominals to their corresponding verb be captmed in two diflerent 
ways. The relationship between productive noniinalizations and verl)s 
was captured by means of a transformational rule. Non-productive 
nominalizations (like "destruction") are related to the verb by sharing 
similar phrase struetu~es. To accomplish this, Chomsky pn)posed the 
X-Bar Convention, the use of generalized cross-categorical phrase 
structure rules. 
In the network fl'amework, the generalization between verbs and 
productive nominalizations is handled by structure sharing - they shale 
descriptions of argument structure in the semantic domain, just as with 
the passive examples. So a network expressing the relation among 
"destroy" and "destroying" and their thematic structure would be simi- 
lar to the passive example in Figure 2. 
Indeed, the abstraction hierarchy allows a way to provide for the 
creativity of language without explicit rules. Imagine the itwention of 
a new Action, xerox. Now the concept xerox is inserted under the mo~e 
general concept Action, and inherits from it the mapping relation to the 
nominal total. A possible representation is outline in Figure 4. 
Note that this method does not involve a "rule" to capture its gen-- 
eralizations. This may call into question the classic Chomskyan argu- 
ment from creativity to the need for rule systems. 
In this way we can handle non-productive nominalizations as well 
as productive ones. A characteristic feature of these non-productive 
nominalizations is that tbeir semantics is rarely predictable tom the 
semantics of the underlying verb - they tend to differ in idiosyncratic 
ways. From a diachronic element, we would say that the non- 
productive nominalizations have undergone ~mantic drill The net. 
- work representation of the synchronic results of semantic drift are simo 
ply the creation of a new node which inherits fi'om Thi~Jg at the 
Semantic level. But note that although this new node may differ in 
various elements of its semantics, it will rarely drift far enough to 
change its thematic structure. Thus the similarity in the argument 
structure between non-productive nominalizations and verbs is not a 
syntactic fact, as predicted by Chomsky 1970, but a semantic one. This 
would predict that non-productive nominalizations which have drifted 
far enough to have changed their argument structure would also differ 
syntactically from the related verh, This is indeed found to be the case. 
So, for example although we are perfectly comfm~able in saying (18) or 
(19), the meaning of "laughter" has drifted c~xough that it is uncon~brt ~ 
able to use it with an object in (20). 
(18) Who is stupid enough to laugh at Marlowe? 
(19) Laughing at M'lrlowe is a dangerous proposition. 
(20) *Laughter at Marlowe is rare. 
A redundant lexicalized representation of the nOnoproductiw: 
nominalizatlons might look much like the one for adjecti;,cs in Figme 
3. 
Noun \] 
-7-T~- ..... h 
\ I'"°"<L/---/ /IN 
\- \ -S i;, 
I_ ' .... :% _-2:s 1 
xeroxe~ xeroxed (~bject 
Semantic Syntactic 
Domain Domain 
Figure 4 - Inheriting 
3.5. Probgem and Fiature Directions 
Tim deriva~km of verbs from nouns citrates in a markedly dif- 
lerent way from dm derivation of nouns from verbs. As Clark and Clark 
(19"/9) note, a speaker ill using a denominal verb denotes a situation 
where "the parfait noun denotes one role ill the situation, mid tile 
remaining surface arguments of file denominal verb denote other roles 
in the situation." A sketcll of a solution would involve view-mappings 
which relate not,ns to their derived verbs in the Semantic domain. In 
this domain, a heavily context-dependent process creates a new lexical 
entry through a metapt!orical mapping fl'om the underlying Thing. 
Thus this phenomenon may be much more process-oriented than tile 
construction model currently allows for. 
Another il;lpoltant issue is tile ability to model prototype effects 
and other cogniiive issues ill categmy theory. "file ISA links which I 
have sketched in file lexiealized nlodels are only an impoverished 
model of categorization. A solution will probably involve some solu- 
tion such as adding nmnerical weights to nodes and to links to express 
typicality weights. 
4. Collcluslon 
This patx:r has suggested the barest skeleton of a representation 
system for linguistic knowledge. I have discussed the semantics of two 
important constructions, Passive and Dative, and have roughly them 
sketched out in ~,mch a way as to give us an insight into how they can be 
combined in a model of language use. In addition, I discussed how tile 
information and coustrainls in these constructions might be redundantly 
specified in the lexicon. These problems have offered us a glimpse of 
what soli of constraints difficult linguistic problems will set for 
rclnesentational theories. In explorhlg these constraints we gain impor- 
tant insights imp the requirements for a model of our use of natural 
language. 

References 

Andrews, Avery 1985. "The major functions of file noun phrase" ill 
Shopen 1985 

Becket, Joseph 1976. "The Phrasal Lexicon". fil Proceedings oflnter- 
disciplinary Workshop on Theoretical Issues in Natural 
Language Processing. R. Schank and B. L. Nash-Webber (eds.). 
Cambridge, Ma~s. Jurte 1975. 

Bobrow, D.G. and Allan Collins. 1975. Representation and Under- 
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