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Lexical vs. compositional Agency: The role of the context in licencing Agency

Elisabetta, Ježek (2025) Lexical vs. compositional Agency: The role of the context in licencing Agency. VERBUM: ANALECTA NEOLATINA, 26 (1). pp. 113-132. ISSN 1585-079X

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Abstract

In this paper, we propose a taxonomy of verbs based on their compositional behaviour regarding Agency. The taxonomy comprises three primary classes: agentselecting verbs, non-agent-selecting verbs, and verbs that are lexically underspecified regarding Agency. We describe the semantic and syntactic characteristics of each class using evidence from corpora and considering the potential influence of coercive phenomena in semantic composition, which may be prompted by contextual cues such as agent-oriented or patient-oriented adverbials (intentionally, accidentally). Our analysis focuses on Italian, but the conclusions generally apply to other languages as well.

Item Type: Article
Uncontrolled Keywords: agent, subject, semantic role, verb classes, context, coercion
Subjects: P Language and Literature / nyelvészet és irodalom > PC Romance languages / újlatin nyelvek, romanisztika
SWORD Depositor: MTMT SWORD
Depositing User: MTMT SWORD
Date Deposited: 11 Jul 2025 11:22
Last Modified: 11 Jul 2025 11:22
URI: https://real.mtak.hu/id/eprint/220978

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