Lexical representation within the lexical constructional model: an analysis of verbs of happiness and happening

摘要

This paper will look at how lexical templates can be designed for the representation of the lexico-semantic, syntactic and pragmatic properties of the English verbs of happiness and happening within the Lexical Constructional Model (Mairal Usón & Ruiz de Mendoza 2006; Ruiz de Mendoza & Mairal Usón 2007, 2008). A lexical template is a formal meta-entry which in just one format unifies all the grammatically, semantically and pragmatically salient features relevant to a particular verbal class. In this work, we will illustrate how, by combining a number of semantic primitives (Wierzbicka 1996), lexical functions (Mel’cuk 1989) and Aktionsart distinctions (Van Valin 2005), a fine-grained description of the rich semantic and syntactic subtleties of these two sub-domains can be provided