Polysemy and argument structure, syntactic structure of polysemous verbs in Vietnamese

Abstract

    Polysemy is a widespread phenomenon charactering the majority of words; any theory of tiie representation of word meaning must be able to account for it In Vietnamese, polysemous verte are closely related to verb's changing valency, and veib's changing of syntactic behavior. Each sense of polysemous verb can be a head of the different argument structures and syntactic structures. In Vietnamese, monovalency veibs, which intransitive veihs, can be head of the stiucture of bivalency verbs and vice serva. The phenomenon reflects the interface between verb senses and argument structures and syntactic structures that they play roles as the head. It is verb sense that plays the decisive role how argument structure and syntactic structure, which it is the head, will be.