Comparing between linguists` and statistically-derived verb classes and its theoretical implications = Comparing between linguists` and statistically-derived verb classes and its theoretical implications

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

This paper investigates the validity of narrow verb classes (Pinker 1989) in the context of perceived verb meaning similarity and exemplar-based categorization processes. I hypothesize that the most frequent and typical verb of putative verb class can play the role of a typical exemplar of that verb class, the verb class attractor hypothesis, and that verbs can be classified into smaller groups like narrow classes solely based on verbs` relative semantic distance to the exemplar verbs. By comparing the results of statistically-derived verb clusters to the ways linguists classify verbs via semantic componential analysis, I revisit the properties of narrow verb classes and the classifying criteria proposed in previous literature. The results of this study suggest that the notion of narrow verb classes is not only a theoretically useful construct but also a viable concept represented in speakers` semantic knowledge. (Seoul National University)