Italian VerbNet: A Construction-based Approach to Italian Verb Classification

Abstract

This paper proposes a new method for Italian verb classification -and a preliminary example of resulting classes - inspired by Levin (1993) and VerbNet (Kipper -Schuler, 2005), yet partially independent from these resources ; we achieved such a result by integrating Levin and VerbNet’s models of classifica tion with other theoretic frameworks and resources. The classification is rooted in the constructionist framework (Goldberg, 1995; 2006) and is distribution -based. It is also semantically characterized by a link to FrameNet’s semantic frame sto represent the event expressed by a class. However, the new Italian classes maintain the hierarchic “tree” structure and monotonic nature of VerbNet’s classes, and, where possible, the original name s (e.g.: Verbs of Killing, Verbs of Putting, etc.). We therefore propose here a taxonomy compatible with VerbNet but at the same time adapted to Italian syntax and semant ics. It also addresses a number of problems intrinsic to the original classifications, such as the role of argument alternations, here regarded simply as epiphenomena , consistently with the constructionist approach