On nominal event arguments

Experimental evidence for a meaning-based perspective

Abstract

In this paper, we present experimental insights on the semantics of English adjective-noun constructions such as skillful dancer/ballerina/person. We assume that adjectives like skillful are underspecified, and capture this by means of a context-dependent parameter in their semantics (Reinert 2024). We are interested in the (in)ability of nouns to provide a default interpretation for these adjective-noun constructions. We discuss the results of two norming studies (using regular English nouns as well as nonce nouns) which compare nondeverbal nouns such as ballerina, for which we suggest they have an event argument, and nondeverbal nouns such as person, for which we suggest they do not have an event argument. The results of the experiments point towards the fact that English speakers are sensitive to the noun type that a skillful-type adjective combines with, and, as a consequence, to the presence of event arguments in nouns. We connect this to broader psychological concepts capturing how humans identify and categorize entities belonging to different kinds (Prasada & Dillingham 2006), and argue that skillful-type adjectives are sensitive to activities that are so-called k-properties associated with nouns, which we represent linguistically by means of an event argument in the semantics of the respective nouns.