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In this course, I will address the question of how words encode context. More specifically, I examine the formal mechanisms responsible for argument and adjunct selection in language. I outline a theory of lexically type-driven semantic selection and composition that permits restricted polymorphisms, while explaining the creative use of words in novel contexts. Building explicitly on Generative Lexicon's richer notion of compositionality, I explore the type language and logic necessary to model local context in natural language. Words encode local context as typing information. The compositional rules of the language refer to these types. The operations possible during composition for these types are: i. selection, ii. accommodation, and iii. coercion (exploitation and introduction). As an illustration of this theory, I explore the phenomena of nominal and verbal polysemy, and verbal alternations.
Recently, there has emerged an appreciation of how complex this
problem is, as well as a new understanding of the parameters at play
in the interpretation of polysemous expressions. Two classes of
parameters have been broadly identified as contributing to the
interpretation of polysemous words: more complex lexical
representations, and a means of incorporating local context
compositionally. In this course, I formalize this distinction as that
of inherent versus selectional polysemy, and demonstrate that polysemy
cannot be modeled adequately without enriching the compositional
mechanisms available to the language. In particular, lexically driven
operations of coercion and type selection provide for contextualized
interpretations of expressions, which would otherwise not exhibit
polysemy. I contrast this with Cruse's view (and others) that it is
not possible to maintain a distinction between semantic and pragmatic
ambiguity. I will argue that a strong distinction between pragmatic
and semantic modes of interpretation can be maintained, and is in fact
desirable, if we wish to model the complexity of contributing factors
in compositionality.