Search results for " Adverbial PPs with a predicative value"

Machine-readable entailments with the Italian 'prendere' construction expressing hitting and insulting events

2022

The Italian language features a little debated transitive construction with prendere ‘to take/to catch’ in which a prepositional phrase (PP) with an adverbial value occurs mandatorily (e.g. Lui prese a pugni Leo ‘He punched Leo’). Semantically, this construction often implies the use of physical force or verbal offence. In the hitting or insulting event, the notional subject generally is a [+ Human] Agent, whilst the notional direct object generally is a [+ Animate] Affectee ([1]: 4). It can be contended that prendere, which carries no literal meaning, is zero-valent and that the predicate assigning semantic roles is the PP. A computational tool will be illustrated, …