This paper introduces an extension of distinctive-collocate analysis that takes into account grammatical structure and is specifically geared to investigating pairs of semantically similar grammatical constructions and the lexemes that occur in them. The method, referred to as `distinctive-collexeme analysis' identifies lexemes that exhibit a strong preference for one member of the pair as opposed to the other, and thus makes it possible to identify subtle distributional differences between the members of such a pair. The method can be applied in the context of what is sometimes referred to as `grammatical alternation' (e.g. the dative alternation), but it can also be applied to other choices provided by the grammar (such as the two future tense constructions in English). The method has two main applications. First, it can reveal subtle differences between seemingly synonymous constructions, many of which are difficult to identify on the basis of more traditional approaches. Second, it can be used to investigate the very notion of `alternation'; we show that many alternations are much more restricted than has hitherto been assumed, and thus confirm the claims of recent, non-derivational views of grammar

This paper describes an approach to detect the organization of semantic subclasses of Japanese verbs. First, we classify verbs along two dimensions: thematic and aspectual. In the thematic dimension, we exploit the pattern of case marking particles which are attached to arguments of verbs. In the aspectual dimension, we exploit the classification of adverbs which modify verbs in a corpus. By combining the results of two classifications, we obtain an elaborate classification of verbs. We can incorporate the prototypicality of the members which constitute each semantic subclass by taking account of the frequency of case particles patterns and cooccurring adverbs. Moreover, the existence of close relationships among them enable us to detect the organization of these subclasses. Keywords: Japanese verbs, semantic subclass, two-dimensional, case marking particles, adverbs, prototypicality 1. INTRODUCTION

This paper introduces an extension of collocational analysis that takes into account grammatical structure and is specifically geared to investigating the interaction of lexemes and the grammatical constructions associated with them. The method is framed in a construction-based approach to language, i.e. it assumes that grammar consists of signs (form-meaning pairs), and is thus not fundamentally different from the lexicon. The method is applied to linguistic expressions at various levels of abstraction (words, semi-fixed phrases, argument structures, tense, aspect and mood). The method has two main applications: first, to increase the adequacy of grammatical description by providing an objective way of identifying the meaning of a grammatical construction and determining the degree to which particular slots in it prefer or are restricted to a particular set of lexemes; second, to provide data for linguistic theory-building

With grammaticalization theorists becoming increasingly aware of the relevance of constructions to their discipline, one of them even defining grammaticalization as the creation of new constructions, precisely the problem which construction grammarians engaging in diachronic research are addressing (or one they should be addressing be-cause to date the discipline has not really taken off), the question rises of whether grammaticalization theory could simply be turned into the historical branch of con-struction grammar, or whether diachronic construction grammar has its own raison d’être as a separate discipline. Since grammaticalization theoretical practice is fairly narrowly focused on the change of extant constructions along a path towards the grammatical end of the meaning continuum, there definitely is a need for a wider dis-cipline that also concerns itself with the primary emergence of constructions. Though grammaticalization presupposes ‘constructionalization’, the two developments need to be kept apart because not all constructions go on to grammaticalize. They have ap-parently been conflated, however, in two recent discussions of the evolution of argu-ment structure constructions (Schøsler 2003 and Trousdale 2005).

This study aims to contribute to the efforts of explaining word order variations observed in Turkish, by granting a role to the hierarchical structure for certain word order alternations, and by admitting discourse-driven ‘extra-syntactic’ mechanisms for others. It will propose a tentative extension to the framework of the Minimalist Program (as it appears in Chomsky, 1995), by adopting its basic tenets and introducing the information structure (IS) as a representation that feeds the phonological component. IS differences will be maintained to be responsible from what is frequently referred to in the literature as ‘optional’ or ‘stylistic’ movements. Extraposition and contrastive focus fronting will be argued to be IS-driven movements in Turkish. It will be maintained that the SOV-OSV alternation in the surface forms with pre-verbal focus signals a difference in the hierarchical structure, whereas other word orders in transitives can best be viewed as sharing the phrase structures, hence being discursive variants of either the SOV or the OSV construction. OSV will be analyzed as involving a grammatical movement of the object to an IP-external Spec position. In addition, OSV will be proposed to represent the inverse voice in Turkish. The phrase structure in Turkish will be analyzed from a Minimalist perspective, and structural analyses will be given for what is referred to as ‘incorporation’ of objects and subjects in Turkish. Keywords: Turkish, word order, phrase structure, information structure, phonological component, extraposition, contrastive fronting, topic-driven movement, Case checking, object shift, incorporation, VP-shells, scrambling, inverse voice, basic word order.

Abstract not found

Abstract not found

The aim of this paper is to reconsider certain assumptions about conceptual structure which have become influential in recent Cognitive Science and which are associated in particular with the Cognitive Linguistics research agenda. I will outline three areas within the Cognitive Linguistics theory of concepts which seem to create some difficulties in their present formulation: the 'embodied cognition' idea, the function of imagery and the role of metaphor in the structure of concepts.

this paper entitled "Chinese Verb Semantics and Cognitive Relativism" was presented at the First Cognitive Linguistics Conference in Taiwan held at the National Chengchi University, January 12-13, 2002. I have benefited from discussions and comments from the participants at the conference, especially Leonard Talmy. I have also benefited from two anonymous reviewers for their comments and suggestions. I am very grateful to Yuchau E. Hsiao, the conference organizer, who invited me to present the paper at the conference and exerted friendly pressure on me to revise the paper for publication. Needless to say, I am solely responsible for any infelicities herein

Abstract. Computational models of grounded language learning have been based on the premise that words and concepts are learned simultaneously. Given the mounting cognitive evidence for concept formation in infants, we argue that the availability of pre-lexical concepts (learned from image sequences) leads to considerable computational efficiency in word acquisition. Key to the process is a model of bottom-up visual attention in dynamic scenes. Background learning and foreground segmentation is used to generate robust tracking and detect occlusion events. Trajectories are clustered to obtain motion event concepts. The object concepts (image schemas) are abstracted from the combined appearance and motion data. The set of acquired concepts under visual attentive focus are then correlated with contemporaneous commentary to learn the grounded semantics of words and multi-word phrasal concatenations from the narrative. We demonstrate that even based on a mere half hour of video (of a scene involving many objects and actvities), a number of