Logical polysemy, event and argument structure of some German shooting-verbs

Abstract

In this paper we raise firstly inadequacies of the analysis of the verb to shoot by Croft (1998). Subsequently, we assign to this verb alternative configurations of base and profile according to the causal structure model (Croft, 1991, 1998) and the action chain model (Langacker, 1999). That forms the basis of a cognitive-grammatical description of a subset of the readings of the German verbs schießen, abschießen, anschießen, erschießen, totschießen and niederschießen. It will be suggested that these senses can be attributed to a large extent to functions, which are applied to verbal bases and profiles, and extend or shift these segments. Qualia structure of the verbs' complements are also considered. Aspects of the generative lexicon theory (Pustejovsky, 1995) are included in this way into the cognitive semantic analysis. Differently than proposed by Pustejovsky (1995), however, we plead for ordered rules, which erase certain arguments of a verb under certain conditions, instead of classifying these items according to their possibility of being omitted.