The Interplay of Synonymy and Polysemy

Pustejovsky (1995) 
Pustejovsky (1995) proposes that lexical items are made up of four structures, which 
contain their own specific kinds of semantic information. The first, called 
Argument 
Structure
, specifies the amount and types of arguments for a word. It contains information 
about how the item’s meaning maps onto syntactic structure. The second is 
Event Structure
which characterizes items as events, processes or transitions. The most important element in 
this discussion is the 
Qualia Structure
. It includes information about the relation between an 
object and its parts, the purpose and function of an element, and the factors involved in its 
origin. Finally, the 
Inheritance Structure
describes how a word is related to other concepts 
(1995:60). To exemplify, the structure for the verb 
kill
is shown in (2).
(2) 
(1995:102) 
Pustejovsky (1995) uses formal logic to derive the semantics of a proposition. The 
above structure includes symbols relevant for logic which will not be discussed here. In the 
Event Structure we can capture that 
kill
can be used either to refer to a process or to a state. 
The Argument Structure contains information stating that the first argument, the killer is a 
physical object, while the one killed must be animate. Finally the Qualia contains other 
distinguishing information, such that it is a verb that results in the second argument being 
dead, and that the first argument is an agent that kills the second argument.
The variety of information contained in a lexical entry can account for logical 
polysemy (§2.2). When words combine in syntax, specific meanings arise because the 

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combining words pick out certain aspects of the structure. Returning to the example of 
He 
began a book
; inside the Qualia Structure of the word 
book
, there would be a specification 
that the function of a book is to be read. The verb 
begin
and other contextual clues help pick 
out this sense from the structure, therefore deriving the correct semantics (i.e. 
He began 
reading the book
). The Qualia “suggest” certain interpretations (1995:87), which are then 
activated within a context. In verb plus direct object combinations much of the information is 
provided by the direct object. Pustejovsky’s (1995) proposal does not require two entries for 
these senses, but instead this information is placed within an expanded semantic structure. 
Though he discusses different kinds of semantic relations, including synonymy, 
antonymy, etc. (1995:23-27) it is not clear that his system captures synonymy in a way that is 
significantly different from the traditional view. Synonyms are lexical items with a similar 
structure. There is no way to mark this relation in the lexicon. The advantage to 
Pustejovsky’s system is that the lexical entry contains much more detail. This could allow for 
more fine-grained distinctions between synonyms.