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<Paper uid="T75-2006">
  <Title>A SYSTEM OF SEMANTIC PRIMITIVES</Title>
  <Section position="2" start_page="24" end_page="24" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
GO(THE HAWK, ITS NEST, THE GROUND).
Manner: THROUGH THE AIR
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> (I use capitals to represent semantic markers for the corresponding English expression -- unsystematically, unless it is relevant to the present discussion.) Of course, a full explication of fly would involve further analysis of the manner marker; but what is relevant here is that the common element of meaning has been extracted from all verbs of physical motion. Next consider (2).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> (2)a. Max is in Africa.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> b. The cat lay on the couch.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> c. The statue stands on Cambridge Common. These do not describe a motion, but rather the location of an object relative to some object. The formal semantic representation of (2) will thus include a function BE(x,y), where X is the Theme (the object being located) and X its Location. As in (I), the differences of meaning among the sentences in (2) are expressed by substituting different markers for x and X and by attaching different manner markers as restrictive modifiers of the function BE.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> In addition to the verbs of location illustrated in (2), there is a second, smaller class of locational verbs with rather different semantic properties: (3)a. The bacteria stayed in his body.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> b. Stanley remained in Africa.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> c. Bill kept the book on the shelf.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> These differ from (2) in that (i) they cannot refer to a point in time, as can (2); (ii) they can serve as a complement to what happened was that, whereas (2) cannot.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> (4)a. The bacteria~were in his body at 6:00.  r L'stayed b. The cat|lay on the couch at 6:00.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> \[*remained (5) What happened was that ~tanley remained in Africa.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10">  ~ill kept the book on the shelf.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> ~Max was in Siberia.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> ~The statue stood on Cambridge ~ommon.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> The verbs in (3) will be represented in part as STAY(x,y), where x is the Theme and X its</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15"> The evidence from what happened was indicates that STAY verbs, like GO verbs, represent events, while BE verbs represent states of affairs.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="3" start_page="24" end_page="24" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
2. Position, Possession, and Identification
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The most important aspect of Gruber's analysis is his extension of the interpretations of GO, BE, and STAY to a wide variety of examples where the &amp;quot;position&amp;quot; (Source, Goal, or Location), of the Theme is not specified in physical terms, as it is in (I)-(3). Consider these examples: (6)a. Harry gave the book to the library.  b, Charlie bought the lamp from Max. c. Will inherited a million dollars.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> (7)a. The book belonged to the library. b. Max owned an iguana.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> c. Bill had no money.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> (8)a. The library kept the book.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> b. The iguana stayed in Max's possession. c. The leopard retained its spots.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5">  In (6), the object described by the direct object of the sentence undergoes a change in whom it belongs to. By analogy with (I), we can call the object undergoing change the Theme, and the initial and final states Source and Goal respectively. (7) expresses states of possession; by parallel with (6) and (2), we will call the possessed object Theme and the possessor Location. (8) also expresses a single unchanging possessor; but at 6:00 may be added only to (7), not to (8), and what happened was may be prefixed only to (8), not to (7).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> Thus there is an important parallel between (6)-(8) and (I)-(3). Gruber chooses to represent this parallel by claiming that (6) are GO verbs, (7) are BE verbs, and (8) are STAY verbs. The difference between (6)-(8) and (I)-(3) is expressed by a modifier on the functions. For physical motion and location, the modifier is Positional; for possession, it is Possessional. (la), for example, is now represented as GO~oW,~ (THE TRAIN, DETROIT, CINCINATTI); (6a) is GO~os~ (THE BOOK,</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="4" start_page="24" end_page="24" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
HARRY, THE LIBRARY).
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Another important &amp;quot;mode of location&amp;quot; besides Positional and Possessional is illustrated in the following examples.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> (9)a. The coach changed from young man into a pumpkin.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2">  b. The metal turned red.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> c. The ice became mushy.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> a handsome (10)a. The coach was a pumpkin. b. The metal was red.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> c. The pumpkin seemed tasty.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> (11)a. The poor coach stayed a pumpkin. b. The metal remained red.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> c. The redness persisted.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8">  The same three-way contrast obtains. (9) describes changes of state; (10) describes a state; (11) describes the persistence of a state. Of the two nonmotional cases, at 6:00 may be added only to (10), and what happened was may be prefixed only to (11). Gruber proposes a modifier Identificational, which indicates that the Location or Source and Goal of the function to which it is affixed make claims about what the Theme is, rather than where or whose it is. Thus for example, (9a) is represented as GO~(THE COACH, A HANDSOME YOUNG MAN, A PUMPKIN). (For sentences such as (9a) in which one of the arguments is absent from the sentence, the semantic representation will contain a free variable.) By adopting the markers Positional, Possessional, and Identificational as restrictive modifiers on the functions GO, BE, and STAY, we capture important semantic distinctions and generalizations. The combination of the three markers with each of the three functions yields a particular class of verbs, accounting for the similarities and differences among the classes in a natural way. As evidence that this is the correct breakdown, we observe that many verbs occur in more than one locational mode, while preserving their classificaton as GO, BE, or STAY verbs: (12)a. The coach turned into a driveway.  In each pair, the same verb is used in two different locational modes. Since these uses are not a priori related, it is a significant generalization that a sizable number of verbs exhibit such behavior. In the present formalism the relationship between the uses is clear and nonaccidental: the verb stays fundamentally the same, changing only the value of the restrictive modifier denoting locational mode.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> The fundamental concept represented by sentences in the present theory, then, is giving the location(s) of an object at a particular time or during a particular interval; the richness of expression available to natural language comes in part from extending the concept of location to other than physical position.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10">  3. Causative and Permissive Agency  In addition to the three functions discussed so far, there are two which describe different kinds of causation. Compare (13a,b,c).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> (13)a. The rock fell from the roof to the ground.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="12"> Dick received the money.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="13"> The bird went out of the cage.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="14"> Noga stayed sick.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="15"> b. Linda lowered the rock from the roof to the ground.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="16"> Dick acquired the money.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="17"> Laura took the bird from the cage.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="18"> David kept Noga sick.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="19"> c. Linda dropped the rock from the roof to the ground.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="20"> Dick accepted the money.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="21"> Laura released the bird from the cage.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="22"> David left Noga sick.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="23"> The events of the a. sentences are also described in the b. and c. sentences, but the latter two claim that the events are due to the agency of the subject, who is thus termed an Agent. In turn, (13b,c) differ in the kind of action performed by the Agent: (13b) is bringing the event about, or causing: (13c) is ceasing to prevent the event, or letting. We will symbolize these two kinds of agency as CAUSE (x,e) and LET (x,e) respectively. The first examples of each group in (13) receive the representations (14a,b,c) respectively.  (14)a. GO@o~ (THE ROCK, THE ROOF, THE GROUND) b. CAUSE (LINDA, GO p~ (THE ROCK, THE ROOF, THE GROUND)) c. LET (LINDA, GOIBo~ (THE ROCK, THE</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="5" start_page="24" end_page="26" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
ROOF, THE GROUND))
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> The last sentences in each group are (15a,b,c,).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> (15)a. STAY~ (NOGA, SICK) b. CAUSE (DAVID, STAY~ (NOGA, SICK)) c. LET (DAVID, STAY~ (NOGA, SICK)) CAUSE is quite familiar from the literature, LET less so. There are two interesting distinctions between them besides the inferences to be discussed below. First, CAUSE allows an expression of instrument, but LET appears not to: in (16) the with-phrase can be interpreted only as accompaniment.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> (16)a. Linda dropped the rock with a cable. b. Dick accepted the book with a $5 bill.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> c. David left the bird in the cage with a lock on the door.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> Second, the final argument of LET may be either an event or a state of affairs, as seen from the following contrast.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="5"> (17)a. David let Laura out of the room. b. David allowed Laura out of the room.  (17a) must be interpreted as David permitting Laura to gg out of the room; (17b) does not say anything about her  movements, but only where she may be. On the other hand, CAUSE requires its final argument to be an event. All the causative locational verbs such as hold, keep and retain are of the form CAUSE (x, STAY(...)) rather than CAUSE (X, BE(...)). The verb cause, which does allow things like Dollie caused Martin to be happy, has a more complicated analysis than just CAUSE, as will be seen below in (36). (One should be immediately suspicious, since this example means &amp;quot;Dollie caused Martin to become happy&amp;quot; -- see (40b) below).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="6" start_page="26" end_page="26" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
4. Inference Rules
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> We will now develop inference rules to derive logical entailments of sentences on the basis of their semantic representatins.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> An obvious rule of inference is that if an event is caused, it happens. This is formalized as (18).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2">  The inverses of these inference rules are not valid in general: something may happen even if no particular thing one can name is its cause; if something is permitted, that does not guarantee that it happens (although in certain situations such as drooping the inference does go through).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> The rest of the inference rules concern GO, STAY, and BE, and can be stated in terms of simple spatial intuitions. First, there is the principle that if someone stays someplace for a period of time, he is in that place at any instant during that time.  The inverse inference is that if someone doesn't stay someplace during an interval, there is a time during the interval when he isn't there. This can be formalized similarly.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="4"> The parallel inference rule for GO is that if something goes from one place to another, it was at the first place first and the second place second:</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="6"> for some t I , tm such that t~&lt;t L There is no inference from NOT GO, since if someone didn't go from one place to another we can make no inferences about where he was at any time, without further knowledge.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="7"> A very important inference rule is that if and only if someone is not someplace, he is somewhere else. We represent the sense &amp;quot;a place other than Z&amp;quot; as NOT Z, for reasons to become clear shortly.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="8"> (27) NOT BE (X,Z)&lt;-&gt;BE (X, NOT Z) Also, if and only if someone is someplace, he is not elsewhere.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="9"> I (28) BE (X,Z)&lt;-&gt;NOT BE (X, NOT Z) These rules play a role in inferences such as if John was not inside the house, he was I outside of it (Positional); if either John * or Bill had the book and John didn't, then Bill did (Possessional); and if Sue was sick, she wasn't healthy (Identificational). I The complete derivation of such inferences, however, involves other steps including I 27 factual knowledge, and is too complex to include here.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="10"> Similar to (27)-(28) are inference rules (which we won't formalize here) that if you're going someplace you're not staying anywhere, and if you re staying someplace you re not going anywhere.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="11"> What makes the sort of inference rules proposed here of interest is the way they provide evidence for the explanatory power of the present theory of semantic description. For in this system, a rule of inference is simpler if it generalizes over all modes of location. The theory claims that it is no accident that the inference rules generalize in the way they do -- rather it is an essential part of the structure of the semantic description. I consider it a striking property of the present system that very simple principles about spatial understanding can be stated formally in such a way that they provide a rich variety of inferences in domains which bear no a priori relation to physical space.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="7" start_page="26" end_page="26" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
5. Circumstantial Location
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> Consider the ~ interpretations of (29a,b).</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> (29) a. Laura kept David in the room. b. Laura kept David working. (In deep structure, Laura kept David \[~David working\]) The interpretation of (29a) is CAUSE(LAURA,STAY~,~(DAVID, THE ROOM)). If the verb keep is to be essentially the same in (29b), we must provide (29b) with a similar interpretation, though clearly none of the modes of location discussed so far can provide one. We introduce a mode called Circumstantial: if an individual is in a Circumstantial Location, where the location is an event or state of affairs, this is taken to mean that the individual is involved as a participant in that event or state of affairs. Then we can assign (29b) the reading (30).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="8" start_page="26" end_page="26" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
(30) CAUSE(LAURA,STAY~,~(DAVID,DAVID WORK))
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> This claims that Laura caused David to continue to be involved in the situation of working, precisely the desired interpretation, and furthermore of precisely parallel form to its Positional analogue (29a). Other examples: (31) a. Linda kept Laura (away) from the cookie jar.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="9" start_page="26" end_page="28" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
LET(JACK BE~ (JIM,NOT(JIM FIGHT)))
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> There are four points to observe about these representations. First, where a verb that takes a sentential complement has a Positional variant, the two versions of the verb have identical representatons but for the locational mode. Thus in the present system it is no accident that the verb occurs in two seeming disparate syntactic and semantic frames.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Second, the NOT meaning &amp;quot;somewhere other than&amp;quot; in Positional contexts appears to generalize fully with the NOT of sentence negation in Circumstantial contexts.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> Third, complement type is related to semantic representation. Gerundives typically correspond to Locations or Goals; from-ing complements are negated Locations and negated Goals; to-infinitive complements are Goals of various sorts (including Goals of intentions, not discussed here); that-complements are typically Themes. The correspondence is hardly exact partly because there are far more semantic positions for clauses than there are complement types: but it is far from random either.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="3"> Fourth, and most striking, the inference rules of the previous section can be applied to Circumstantial verbs quite freely. Given the special inference rule (39), which follows immediately from the definition of Circumstantial location, we can derive such inferences as (40) (omitting time dependencies).</Paragraph>
  </Section>
  <Section position="10" start_page="28" end_page="28" type="metho">
    <SectionTitle>
JIM FIGHT
</SectionTitle>
    <Paragraph position="0"> This kind of inference is characteristic of the &amp;quot;implicative&amp;quot; verbs described by Karttunen (1971). In the present system it follows immediately from the semantic analysis and the generalization of the inference rules for spatial location to the circumstantial mode.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="1"> Lest the generalization from Positional to Circumstantial should still seem marginal and unmotivated, notice that it is quite pervasive in the language. For a few very clear random examples, consider t_go come t_go b__ge called Max, to lead someone to believe, t__oo drive someone t__oo confess, t__q bring oneself t__oo acknowledge something, and, among nominals, the way to find out. For an even more interesting example, consider the meaning of force in (34a). In addition to the semantic description given there, there is a marker of manner roughly paraphrasable as &amp;quot;by applying pressure against the ball's resistance.&amp;quot; Here the concepts of pressure, applying pressure, and resistance are purely physical. But in fact the same manner marker &amp;quot;by applying pressure against Phil's resistance', is miraculously perfect for (34b), where the concepts of pressure, applying pressure, and resistance are much more abstract in nature. Surely this is no coincidence; it argues that the extension  from Positional to Circumstantial is highly determined in human cognition, and that the generalization of a verb's meaning follows innate lines of analogy. The present theory of semantic description is explanatory in that these generalizations fall out immediately from the choice of semantic primitives, which are in turn chosen on linguistic grounds.</Paragraph>
    <Paragraph position="2"> This result is consistent with Piaget's view (1947, 1970) that (nonverbal) knowledge of physical spatial relations is the .most basic sort of knowledge we have, and that all other kinds of knoweldge develop out of it. Within such a framework, the inference rules proposed here are not merely linguistic but conceptual, and correspond closely to Piaget's principles of conservation and identity. The growth in one's ability to handle abstraction then consists (in part) in understanding new modes of location and being able to generalize the rules of inference to a new system of relations. If this is so, the theory proposed here is a deep result not only for linguistic theory but for the study of human conceptualization.</Paragraph>
  </Section>
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