Most researchers within semantics look at the meaning of words
from a linguistic perspective. From this perspective it is diffi cult to free
oneself of syntactic concepts. For example, the “arguments” of verbs
show up in most semantic analyses (for example, Levin and Rappaport
Hovav 2005). The notion of argument derives, however, from syntax.
Among other things, this leads to the distinction between transitive
and intransitive verbs. However, this distinction does not correspond
to any clear-cut semantic distinction. Similarly, it is said that verbs
and adjectives are used in a “predicative” manner. The notion of predicative
derives from theories in philosophy and linguistics that aim at
grounding semantics in predicate logic. In my opinion, this is an artifi -
cial construction that does not have a cognitive grounding. In contrast,
my ambition is to develop semantic models that are constructed from
general cognitive mechanisms. The semantic theory of this article is
supposed to be syntax-free. In other words, the semantic notions should
not depend on any grammatical categories. This does not mean that I
deny that syntax contributes to meaning (Langacker 2008: 3–4). I only
claim that semantics of word roots can be treated independently from
syntax.