Formalizing spatial-causal polysemy of Agent prepositions

• Published in: Semantics and pragmatics Vol. 17; no. 4
• Main Authors: Staps, Camil, Rooryck, Johan
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Washington Linguistic Society of America 01.01.2024
• Subjects: Cognitive linguistics; Context; French language; Homonyms; Meaning; Polysemy; Prepositions; Semantics; Syntax

Current formal approaches to by-phrases in passives analyze the Agent preposition by as semantically vacuous: the denotation of by is merely such that its argument fulfills the same function as the external argument in the corresponding active sentence. This leads to a view of agentive by as essenti...