[Lexicog] Lexical polysemy

[Amsler, Robert]

>From the perspective of a computational lexicologist what I'd like to see is
subsenses conveyed within a decision tree structure, with a series of tests
at each branch point to determine when a sense qualifies for each major and
minor specialization. Tests can be described in terms of constaints on the
arguments the verb takes or in terms of usage characteristics such as the
constructions in which the verb appears, but the need here is to form a
higher level of testing for each sense distinction than just giving
examples.

If the usage were "abandon a(n) <X>" then how would you describe the
constraints on <X>? I would guess that if <X> is a human being for whom one
is a legal guardian, then there would be a different sense than if <X> is an
inanimate entity which one owns. Does it matter whether one abandon's <X> by
taking it someplace and leaving it there vs. <X> being real estate property
which one abandons by failing to pay mortgages or property taxes and leaving
no forwarding address. Once again, the law might define a difference. This
isn't to say that the legal precedents should be the arbiter of meanings,
since there are many distinctions that are not based on legal differences
(though, differences which ARE treated differently under the law would
almost always seem to correspond to different senses in ordinary language),
but that it would be useful to offer testing criteria for taking the
branches of meaning rather than just descriptions and examples. Descriptions
suffer from ambiguity which can be very hard to interpret (especially if one
is consulting the dictionary because one doesn't know the meaning of every
word in the description). Tests are somewhat better because they presuppose
that the test can be asked and answered. I find test criteria, especially
those with YES/NO answers, to be more precise than descriptions.

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