Derived frames and the lexicon*

1 Introduction

The first version of the electronic lexicon has been implemented in DATR (see [EG90]), and is described in [Sko97]. The verb frames contained in the electronic lexicon are immediately valid for verbs in active voice. The problem is, how to store all the derived variants of them. They can either be listed in the lexicon, or it should be possible to derive them from the active frames by lexical rules. The derivations of the verb frames show many regularities, that can be generalized. So, it seems that the lexical rules approach is better.

In this paper, I will examine possible variants of verb frames and suggest the algorithms for necessary lexical rules. I will discuss several theoretical approaches to verb frame classification and examine which of them is the most suitable for my purposes.

2 Theoretical background

In other theoretical models [DHG87, KNR95], the repertory of participants is wider: instead of Actor one speaks about Agent, Causer, Experiencer, etc. Patient is more or less a countepart of the direct object and Recipient of the indirect object. In FGD, Actor and Patient are determined by syntactic criteria rather than by semantic ones (cf. Tesniere's approach [Tes59]), and other participants are determined semantically:

1. If the verb frame contains only one participant, this participant is Actor.
2. If the frame contains two participants, one of them is Actor and the other is Patient. In most cases, Actor is the subject of the active constructions, but there are some exceptions to this rule, which will be discussed later.
3. If the verb frame has more than two participants, the positions of Actor and Patient must be occupied, and the other participants are Addressee, Effect or Origin. The decision about which participant bears which role is based on the semantics of the participants.

In this work, I will only consider such derived constructions in which the surface syntactic structure is different from the primary shape. Such constructions as

(1)	a.	Bolest probudila Pavla.
		Pain woke Pavel.
	b.	Marie probudila Pavla.
		Marie woke Pavel.

differ in the semantics of the subject. In (1a), the subject has the role of Causer (according to [DHG87, DH87]), while in (1b), the subject is Agent. In the FGD approach, however, both the subjects have the role of Actor. Both the constructions are identical on the surface level and they only differ in the lexical setting of the subject. If we wanted to make this fine distinction we would have to work with semantic features in the lexicon. In the literature ([GK89, DH87]), some semantic features are used, but their exact description is missing. After a thorough revision they may be used in the next stage of our work.

3 Verb frames and their surface realization

• periphrastic passive
• reflexive passive (unaccusative)
• mediopassive
• constructions with the verbs mít (to have) and dostat (to get)

3.1 Periphrastic passive

• not all transitive verbs can be passivized (e.g. mít `to have', dostat `to get', etc.)
• some verbs without an accusative object can form passive:

  (3)	Jeho žádosti bylo (úřadem) vyhověno.
  	His applicationdat was (by office) granted.
  	`His application was granted (by the office).'

There is another possible surface form of Actor: the prepositional phrase od `from' + genitive, but it seems that this form cannot be used with all verbs -- here, again, the semantics of the verb and its participants plays a role:

(5)	a.	Pepík je bit od otce.
		Pepík is beaten from father.
	b.	*Kniha byla napsána od slavného autora.
		*Book was written from famous author.

The conditions in which this construction can be used will be examined in the future work. In this paper, I assume that Actor can only occur in instrumental.

The algorithm for deriving the frame of the periphrastic passive is described here:

• If there is the 1st object in accusative in the frame, it becomes the subject (in nominative).
• If the 1st object is a clause or the infinitive, it becomes the subject, with a special sort of agreement (3rd person, singular, neuter).
• If the 1st object has a different form or is missing, the passive has empty subject, with the same sort of agreement as the infinitive or clause subject.
• The original subject becomes optional object in instrumental.
• All other members of the frame stay in their positions.

• stát koho co -- to cost sb sth
  This verb does not have the passive.
• učit koho co_acc /čemu_dat -- to teach sb sth
  If we choose the frame with accusative and dative, no problems occur. But in the frame with two accusatives, one of them must be deleted (both are obligatory deletable) before we create the passive construction:

  (6)	a.	Děti jsou učeny (matematicedat).
  		Children are taught (to mathematics).
  	b.	*Děti jsou učeny matematikuacc.
  		*Children are taught mathematics.
  	c.	Matematika je učena.
  		Mathematics is taught.
  	d.	*Matematika je učena děti.
  		*Mathematics is taught children.

3.2 Reflexive passive

The reflexive passive is sometimes indistinguishable from the intrinsic or true reflexive. The sentence

(8)	Děti se učí dobře.
	Children SE teach well.
	`Children are easy to teach.' or `The children learn well.'

has two readings, as the verb učit `to teach' in reflexive passive has the same form as the reflexive verb učit se `to learn'. This ambiguity is inherent in the language and we will not try to solve this problem in the lexicon.

The algorithm for deriving the reflexive passive frame is nearly identical with the algorithm for the periphrastic passive. The only difference is that Actor is deleted.

The rules for handling the ditransitive verbs stát `to cost' and učit `to teach' are the same as at the periphrastic passive: stát cannot be passivized and with the verb učit, the frame to be passivized can contain only one accusative.

(9)	a.	Děti se učí (matematicedat).
		Children SE teach (to mathematics).
	b.	*Děti se učí matematikuacc.
		*Children SE teach mathematics.
	c.	Matematika se učí od první třídy.
		Mathematics SE teaches from first grade.
	d.	*Matematika se učí děti.
		*Mathematics SE teaches children.

The reflexive passive of učit, however, is homonymous with the reflexive verb učit se `to learn', and thus it is difficult for a Czech speaker to understand the examples in (9a) and (9b) in the passive meaning. As an active sentence with the verb učit se, (9b) is correct.

3.3 Mediopassive

The algorithm for deriving the mediopassive frame is nearly identical with the algorithm for the periphrastic passive, with these exceptions:

• Actor becomes an obligatory member of the frame in dative.
• An adverb becomes an obligatory member (obligatory free modification) of the frame.

3.4 Constructions with mít and dostat

Instead of the (short) passive participle we can use the long form of adjective (long passive participle), especially in the spoken language. In such a case, however, the sentence can become ambiguous:

(14)	a.	Petr dostal (od matky) slíbenu hračku.
		Petr got (from mother) promised toy.
		`Petr was promised a toy (by the mother).'
	b.	Petr dostal (od matky) slíbenou hračku.
		Petr got (from mother) promised toy.
		`Petr was promised a toy (by the mother).'
		or `Petr got the promised toy (from the mother).'

The algorithm for deriving the verb frame of this construction follows:

• An object in Dative (Addressee, Patient, or Benefactor) becomes the subject (in Nominative).
• Actor becomes an optional member of the frame of the form od + genitive.
• All other members of the frame stay in their positions.

All the above constructions can only be derived from perfective verbs, as they express a result.

4 Infinitive and derived frames

4.1 Raising verbs

Subject-to-object raising verbs are such verbs that have an infinitive in the frame and the subject of this infinitive becomes an object of the higher verb. This group contains the verbs of perception:

(17)	a.	Vidím ho přicházet.
		I see him to-come.
		`I see him coming.'
	b.	?Vidím ho být tázána.
		?I see him to-be asked.
		`I see him being asked.'
	c.	?Cítím bábovku péct se.
		?I smell cake to-bake SE.
		`I can smell that a cake is being baked.'

The passive constructions are questionable with this group of verbs; a further research on a text corpus will be necessary.

4.2 Equi verbs

Now, we will explore the possibilities of passive construction of the infinitive. We will use the verb chtít `to want' as the governor, which is a verb that has Actor coindexed with the subject of the infinitive.

(19)	a.	Petr se chce svézt na poníkovi.
		Petr SE wants to-ride on pony.
	b.	Petr chce být pochválen.
		Petr wants to-be praised.
	c.	Bábovkanom se nechce péct.
		Cake SE does not want to-bake.
		`The cake refuses to get baked.'
	d.	Bábovkuacc se mi nechce péct.
		Cake SE medat does not want to-bake.
		`I don't want to bake a cake'.
	e.	(*)Bábovkanom se mi nechce péct.
		(*)Cake SE medat does not want to-bake.
		`The cake refuses to get baked by me.'
		or `I don't want to bake a cake.'
	f.	Dortnom/acc se mi nechce péct.
		Cake SE medat does not want to-bake.
	g.	*Ten pánnom se mi nechce zdravit.
		*That man SE medat does not want to-greet.
		`I don't want to greet that man.'
	h.	Toho pánaacc se mi nechce zdravit.
		That man SE medat does not want to-greet.

The sentence in (19a) contains two active voices, and in (19b) the infinitive is in periphrastic passive. The sentence in (19c) is a construction with reflexive passive of the infinitive. (19d) looks alike in the surface, but its syntactic structure is different. Here, the word bábovka is a direct object of the infinitive, and the whole infinitive clause is the subject of the verb chtít. Now, the question is what are the syntactic roles of the reflexive particle se and of the dative participant mi `to me'. The whole construction in the main clause could be mediopassive of the verb chtít, but then an adverb is missing in the construction. A more satisfying explanation is, that here we have an intrinsic reflexive chce se, where the infinitive is the subject of the frame (with the role of Patient) and the dative member has the role of Actor. There are several such verbs in Czech, whose Actor is not the subject of the construction, but an object in dative case (e.g. líbit se `to like', zdát se `to seem' or `to dream').

The sentence in (19e) differs from the previous sentence by the case of the word bábovka, and from (19c) by the additional dative member mi `to me'. We can understand the sentence as a variation of (19c), with Benefactor expressed by the dative case. In colloquial speech, however, this construction is sometimes used in the meaning of (19d), although some speakers reject this construction. The problem with this sentence is that we have two candidates for the subject of the main clause. The first candidate is the word bábovka, which is in nominative, and the second candidate is the infinitive péct, as in (19d). My conclusion is, that this construction is incorrect; it may be inspired by sentences like (19f), where the form of masculine inanimate noun dort is homonymous. The incorrectness of this construction is fully shown in (19g), where the position of the `nominal subject' is lexically occupied by a masculine animate noun. This sentence is out for all speakers.

4.3 Passive of raising verbs

As the conditions for forming the reflexive passive are rather complex, a set of special grammar rules will be needed to handle exclusively the raising verbs.

5 Conclusion

L_přát_si:
	<syn refl> = si
	<syn subj surf> = NPnom
	<syn subj deep> = Actor
	<syn subj oblig> = oblig_deletable 
	<syn 1_obj surf> = NPacc, VPinf [subj = ^Actor; refl = yes;
                                         pass = perif, mít_2, dostat].
	<syn 1_obj deep> = Patient
	<syn 1_obj oblig> = obligatory
	<syn pass> = no.

L_poručit:
	<syn refl> = no
	<syn subj surf> = NPnom
	<syn subj deep> = Actor
	<syn subj oblig> = oblig_deletable
	<syn 1_obj surf> = VPinf [subj = ^Addr; refl = yes; pass = no].
	<syn 1_obj deep> = Patient
	<syn 1_obj oblig> = obligatory
	<syn 2_obj surf> = NPdat
	<syn 2_obj deep> = Addr
	<syn 2_obj oblig> = oblig_deletable
	<syn pass> = perif, refl, medio, mít_1, dostat.

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