Semantics first! Rethinking the Role of Syntax in Verb Classification

In this paper, we address two major weaknesses of syntacticallyoriented
studies that have been conducted since the 1990s in order to pin
down the semantic properties of verbs and group them into classes. These
limitations include the challenge of clearly distinguishing arguments from
adjuncts, as well as the difficulty of systematically accounting for the optionality
in the syntactic realization of arguments.We argue that these weaknesses
may be overcome by adopting a semantic-oriented approach in which semantic
analysis takes priority and encompasses semantic flexibility of word
meanings. Specifically, we propose that arguments are complements that play
a role in influencing the meaning that the verb acquires in context, whereas
adjuncts do not have an impact on the verb semantics. We also propose that
whether an argument is syntactically optional or mandatory in a sentence is
determined by semantic factors, specifically how much the argument is semantically
incorporated into the verb it depends on. Our analysis is based on
Italian data but the conclusions are generally applicable to other languages
as well.