Homework 3
Exercise on Generative Lexicon

Based on their use in the Jabberwocky poem, provide a Generative Lexicon analysis of two verbs:
• slay
• galumph

NOTES ON HOW TO DO THIS: the task involves analysing all three aspects of the verbs' meaning:
1. Argument structure: How many arguments does the verb take? What is the role of each argument?
   Possibilities for argument roles are
   agent of action,
   theme undergoing the action,
   recepient or beneficiary of the action,
   goal or destination of the action, among others.
2. Event structure: How many events constitute the meaning of the verb? What is the type of each subevent?
   Possibilities here include three types of verbs:
   processes -- an event type associated with undifferentiated activities, where every part of the activity is similar to every other part. For example: walk, work;
   states -- an event type associated with verbs whose meaning is not eventive, so it's not a verb you'd use in response to "What happenned?". For example: be, love, hate, have;
   transition -- the only complex event type, composed of, e.g., the first part, which is a process, and of the second part, which is a state. For example: break (process of breaking smth + state of being broken).
   When the process part of the transition is extremely short, the transition is analysed as composed of a "not-state" and a "yes-state". For example: come (state of being out + state of being in).
3. Qualia structure: the four qualia roles, describing idiosyncratic aspects of word meaning:
   agentive (for verbs, it's the causing act, or the agentive process - in short, an event associated with the originator of the act), e.g. for break it's the process event1, which is the causing-smth-to-break sub-event;
   constitutive (not clear if this role applies to events; in this class, we'll consider the number and type of subevents as the constitutive info), e.g. for break it's the event1 and event2, which are a process (of causing smth to break) and a state (of being broken);
   formal (this role could be different for different vebs. For transitions, the result state fills the formal role; for some manner-of-action verbs, the manner or form in which the act is performed is included in the verb itself), e.g. for break, the formal role is the result state event2 = the state of being broken, for run it's quickly, and for devour it's greedily or quickly;
   telic (doesn't really apply to verbs).