Semantic Type in Linguistic Context

Jacques Lamarche
Departement de Linguistique, UQAM

	In this presentation, I discuss the semantic content of the French
verb ETRE 'to be' and its role in the definition of semantic types. The
standard description of a copular verb like ETRE is that it relates a
predicate argument (<e,t>) to an entity argument (<e>). I argue that this
description of ETRE is not appropriate because it encodes in the lexicon
properties of syntactic constructions. This position follows from the
minimal assumption that, in Generative Grammar, lexical description should
be "terminal", that is, it should not include properties specific to the
phrases and sentences where a lexical item occurs. Applying this
terminality constraint, I argue that 1) ETRE selects one argument, and
nothing else. The notion of entity arises when the verb is combined with
its argument. 2) The categories that are relevant for the notion of entity
are VP and PP--not NP as is generally assumed. 3) The ability of a phrase
to be a predicate is not associated with a given part-of-speech category. 
Rather, predication arises through a specific mode of combination in
syntax. I show that with a terminal description of ETRE, we can account
for type-shifting phenomena that characterize the verb's different uses
without resorting to type-shifting rules or multiple lexical
representations. This approach makes us rethink our position on the role
of syntax in accounting for type ambiguities, the mapping between
conceptual, linguistic and logical categories, and the question of
monosemy/homonymy/polysemy in the grammar of natural language.