Online resources for the syntactic-semantic classification of verbs

Abstract

Verb classes are defined in lexical-semantics literature as syntactically coherent groups of verbs that also share meaning components. Thus, the investigation of verb classes leads to important insights into the syntax-semantics interface. In this perspective, starting from Levin’s (1993) foundational work for English, many authors have developed analyses for the syntactic-semantic classification of verbs in different languages. The aim of this paper is to provide an overview of such studies, focusing on those that constitute online open access resources for the syntactic-semantic classification of verbs: VerbNet for English, BVI for Basque, AnCoraVerb for Spanish and Catalan, VerboWeb for Brazilian Portuguese, CROVALLEX for Croatian, and VALLEX for Czech. Thus, this paper reviews the general theoretical assumptions on verb classification shared by all the works presented, and shows the specific characteristics of each one, considering the body of data, the specific theoretical perspective, analyses and methodology, and the search engines they provide. Finally, it offers a comparative analysis of two specific verb classes (namely, image creation verbs and verbs of creation and transformation), drawing on data from the studies mentioned above. Although these resources assume a specific lexical-semantic approach for verb classification, they provide valuable data and analyses that can be useful for research in different theoretical perspectives.

Keywords

• Verb classes
• Event structure
• Argument structure
• Online resources
• Digital lexicons
• Verbs of creation